Tewksbury Select Board Rejects Suspending Flock Cameras, Orders Independent Cybersecurity Review

TEWKSBURY — June 23, 2026 — Tewksbury Select Board declines to suspend Flock Safety cameras, directs town manager to negotiate a binding master services agreement. The board held a packed public hearing Tuesday on its 20-camera license plate reader system, hearing from Police Chief Mark Columbus, Flock Safety Senior Director of Public Affairs Trevor Chandler, an ACLU of Massachusetts attorney, and more than a dozen residents. Board member James F. Mackey III, a cybersecurity professional who spent six months formally questioning Flock's contract and data practices, moved to cease use of the system pending an independent assessment, saying audit logs showed 428,000 queries against Tewksbury's cameras in a single month with no clear accounting of data downloads by outside agencies. The motion failed for lack of a second. Columbus called the platform "the best tool I've seen in 26 years of law enforcement," citing a drop in residential burglaries from 16 in 2021 to zero this year. Gideon Epstein of the ACLU of Massachusetts told the board Flock's design "maximizes data sharing" and that Flock had previously provided Homeland Security Investigations access to its national network. Town Manager James Curran said he will retain outside expertise to negotiate an MSA over the summer and bring a draft back to the full board. The board also voted 4-1 to approve a one-year pilot of a NIMCOG regional affordable housing monitoring service at an approximate cost of $29,000, funded through the affordable housing trust.