We are asking Princeton Town Council to ban the use of Flock Safety cameras and other automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology within our town limits.

Over the past few years, these cameras have spread quietly across New Jersey. They're now used by both the Princeton Police Department and the Princeton University Police Department. Unlike a normal security camera, a Flock camera doesn't just watch for wrongdoing. It records every single vehicle that passes, whether the driver has done anything wrong or not. Each pass captures the plate number, the car's make, model, and color, plus the time and exact location. Over time, that adds up to a detailed record of where residents go, when they go there, and how often.

This isn't a hypothetical risk. Reporting from across New Jersey and the country has raised real questions about how this data is stored, who can access it, and how long it's kept. Flock's own network allows footage and plate data to be shared across thousands of participating agencies nationwide, often with little public oversight of who's looking at it or why. Once that kind of tracking infrastructure exists, it can be used for far more than catching stolen cars. There is no meaningful public process in most towns, including ours, for residents to weigh in before these systems go up on our streets.

Princeton has always taken pride in being a thoughtful, engaged community. We deserve a real conversation, not a fait accompli, before this kind of surveillance becomes a permanent fixture of daily life here.

The Fourth Amendment protects us against unreasonable searches, and mass, warrantless tracking of every car on our roads runs against that principle, even when the stated goal is public safety. Security and privacy aren't opposites. Princeton can invest in effective, accountable policing without turning every commute into a data point in a private company's database.

Through this petition, we are asking Princeton Town Council to:

1. Enact a local ordinance banning the use of Flock Safety cameras and other automated license plate reader systems within Princeton town limits, covering both municipal and university police use on public roads.

2. Require full public disclosure of any existing camera locations, data-sharing agreements, and retention policies currently in place, pending removal.

3. Hold a public hearing so residents can weigh in before any similar technology is considered again in the future.

If you live in Princeton, work here, or simply care about what kind of town we want to be, please sign this petition. Let's ask our Town Council to choose transparency and restraint over quiet, unchecked surveillance.