CUMBERLAND – The ACLU of Rhode Island, in a letter to the Cumberland Town Council Friday, is calling on members to cancel the town’s contract with Flock Safety for automated license plate reading cameras (ALPRs).
“We recently learned that, in April 2025, a woman was falsely arrested after Cumberland police wrongly identified her in a photo taken by Flock Safety cameras,” stated the organization.
That ongoing federal lawsuit demonstrates that the cameras have been used to take photos not only of vehicle license plates, but also of drivers and passengers, they added.
“This unpublicized expanded use of the cameras in Cumberland was disclosed in a false arrest lawsuit filed in June by private counsel on behalf of a woman who was falsely arrested by Cumberland police after they used an image taken by a Flock camera to wrongly identify her,” it stated.
The ACLU’s letter highlights that, contrary to routine police claims that the ALPRs only take photos of license plates, in this case, the camera was also capable of taking pictures of drivers and passengers.
“These cameras are concerning enough when used just as license plate readers, but their danger is exponentially increased when expanded to take photos of people as well,” stated the ALCU. “Just as disturbing is the fact that no mention was made about this capability when the cameras were approved for purchase in 2024.”
In addition to calling on the council to cancel its contract with Flock Safety, the letter asks the members to tell the public about:
• All the capabilities of the ALPRs being used in Cumberland;
• And at what point the ALPRs began being used to also capture photos of drivers and passengers in vehicles; how often the cameras have been used for this purpose; and whether and when this previously unreported surveillance expansion beyond license plate data was ever shared publicly.
According to the lawsuit, the arrest came after an officer reportedly saw a car make turns without using a turn signal, and resulted in a short vehicle chase. The police officers then used Facebook to identify someone that they believed was the driver, and a police officer’s report from March 2025 wrongly concluded that “a photo from the flock camera of (the plaintiff) driving the vehicle during the pursuit . . . matches (her) license photo.”
According to the police report in that case from March 26, 2025, Patrolman Jack Halloran states that Sgt. Correia showed him a photo captured from a Flock camera of Eva Pizzarelli driving the vehicle he was chasing during a pursuit near Town Hall.
“The photo matches Pizzarelli’s license photo,” states the report. “In the Flock photo, there also appears to be a male in the passenger seat of the vehicle hiding to make it harder for him to be visible.”
The report then states that probable cause was there to charge Pizzarelli for reckless driving and eluding police and multiple other infractions.
That police report narrative goes against the frequent statements that police only use the cameras to capture license plates and identifying features of vehicles, not faces of people.
Council President Michael Kinch said he can’t comment on the specifics related to the lawsuit now, but a proper review of what transpired with the capturing of the photo and the procedures in place will happen at the appropriate time.
The lawsuit against Cumberland, Pizzarelli v. Town of Cumberland, and the ACLU’s letter come at a time when communities across Rhode Island are pushing back against Flock’s surveillance systems.
Chief Matthew Benson said in 2024 that the cameras are a tool that’s seen a “coming of age” and “tremendous success everywhere” in helping law enforcement fight crime. He said they would be used to capture license plates on vehicles heading into town.
South Kingstown, Narragansett, and Glocester town councils have voted to cancel their Flock contracts over the past three weeks.
ACLU of Rhode Island Executive Director Steven Brown said, “This false arrest encapsulates the extremely serious privacy concerns that the ACLU and many others have been raising about Flock Safety and automated license plate reader cameras more broadly. This technology can do more than ‘just record license plates,’ and the secrecy surrounding its more invasive uses deserves special condemnation.”
