Flock and Records Management

Two determinations from the state Supervisor of Records, issued a day apart, ask the Malden Police Department to explain something it has not yet explained: who controls the images its Flock license-plate cameras capture. The Sept. 30 determination (SPR26/3729) and the Oct. 1 determination (SPR26/3838) answer appeals by OpenCommonwealth after Malden said it holds no export of a day's Flock images.¹²

Neither order finds that Malden broke the law. Each says it is unclear whether Flock acts as the Department's agent, and gives the Department ten business days to explain the scope of the relationship so the Supervisor can decide whether Malden has met its duty to provide records in its "possession, custody, or control."²

What the Supervisor Asked Malden to Explain

Both determinations rest on the same reasoning. When a public entity contracts with a private party to carry out public duties and controls that party, the Supervisor writes, an agency relationship can result, and she cites the Supreme Judicial Court's decision in Fifty-one Hispanic Residents of Chelsea v. School Committee of Chelsea. On what the appeal petitions and Malden's responses say, she cannot tell whether that describes Malden and Flock. She does not order any images produced.²

Each letter also carries a short "Records Management" section. In substance, it reminds the Department that public records must be kept in a way the public can reach, points it to the Supervisor's Records Management Unit for guidance and training, and says safeguards must ensure records are retained under the law and the retention schedules, citing G. L. c. 66, §§ 8, 13 and 15. The full paragraph is in the notes.³

That section is new to this matter. The Supervisor's Sept. 16 determination on the first appeal of the Aug. 16 request (SPR26/3477) asked only that Malden Police clarify whether they hold responsive records, and it had no agency-relationship or records-management section.⁴ We have not compared the language with determinations in unrelated matters.

Counting Oct. 12 as a holiday, our count puts Malden Police's responses due about Oct. 15 (SPR26/3729) and Oct. 16 (SPR26/3838).

The Requests in Play

Here is where each Flock-related request stands, drawn from Malden's FOIA Direct records and the Supervisor's letters.

The $33,805 Estimate

The largest number in this set belongs to a request that is not OpenCommonwealth's. On Aug. 31, Clayton Lory of UnFlock Massachusetts asked for Flock and other license-plate-reader emails, contracts, amendments and renewals going back to Jan. 1, 2021.⁵ On Sept. 8, Malden's Records Access Officer wrote that an initial search of a single police officer's email account from January 2026 forward had turned up more than 250 emails, and asked him to consider narrowing the request.⁶

A week later, on Sept. 15, the City Legal Department sent a fee and time petition. It said a search of city email for the word "flock" found about 40,626 messages, that review and redaction would take about two minutes each, or 1,354.20 hours, and that after two free hours at $25 an hour the estimate comes to $33,805.00. The letter says the fee would be reduced and refunded if the work takes less time, and that the City would contact the requester before going beyond the estimate. It also says the requester had not answered the Sept. 8 narrowing proposal.⁵

On Sept. 22 the Supervisor gave the City 30 additional business days, found that the request was not made for a commercial purpose, and said the City may charge for segregating and redacting exempt material, here personal information such as names, addresses and email addresses covered by the privacy exemption, to the extent the responsive records contain it. Her letter does not mention the $33,805 estimate, and it encourages the parties to talk about ways to produce records efficiently and affordably.⁷

What the petition does not say is which email accounts or date range produced the 40,626 count. The Sept. 8 message described a search of one officer's account since January 2026; the request itself reaches back more than five years. The petition notes that defining a timeframe could lower the fee. Those are questions for the City and for the narrowing discussion the Supervisor encouraged.

A Dozen Images, and a Notice on Day Ten

OpenCommonwealth's newest request is its narrowest. Filed Sept. 17, it asks for the first image each Flock camera in the city captured on or after 9 a.m. that day, as maintained and with metadata.⁸ Malden's transparency portal listed 12 cameras when we last compared snapshots, so the request calls for about a dozen images.⁹

On Oct. 1, the tenth business day, the Records Access Officer wrote that, given the volume of incoming requests, staffing limitations and other operational challenges, the City needs additional time, and noted that municipalities may take up to 25 business days.¹⁰ That outer limit exists: Massachusetts municipal guidance describes a 10-business-day first response and up to 15 more business days when the Records Access Officer says so in writing.¹¹ The notice does not name a date by which the City expects to respond. Counting Oct. 12 as a holiday, 25 business days runs to about Oct. 23. The same wording appeared on Sept. 17 in the City Clerk's acknowledgment of request 2026-0408.¹²

One question runs through all three image requests: do the images still exist? Malden's portal listed a seven-day retention window when we last looked.⁹ If that holds, images from Aug. 16 and Sept. 1 had aged out of Flock's system before the Supervisor ruled, and images from Sept. 17 would have aged out around Sept. 24, unless someone exported them. Nothing in the documents we have says whether anyone did. OpenCommonwealth's appeals argue the City could have downloaded the images on the day it received each request; the Department's position is that the platform offers no department-side bulk export.¹³ The narrower request asks for far less than a 24-hour export, which makes the City's answer easier to set beside its earlier statement that the platform is built for investigative searches.

What to Watch

• Malden Police's responses to the Supervisor's orders in SPR26/3729 and SPR26/3838, due about Oct. 15 and Oct. 16 by our count.
• The Supervisor's decision on SPR26/3907, the appeal over Malden's pointer to Flock's transparency portal for request 2026-0408.¹⁴
• The City's response to request 2026-0438, no later than about Oct. 23 if the 25-business-day limit applies.
• Whether the City and UnFlock Massachusetts narrow request 2026-0410, and what any final fee looks like.
• Whether the Department takes up the Supervisor's suggestion to consult the Records Management Unit.

None of this decides whether images held on Flock's servers are Malden's records, or whether a retention schedule applies to them. The Supervisor has asked for facts, not announced an answer. We will update this page when the responses arrive.

Our Coverage of Flock Safety in Malden

Flock Doubts Grow by Two

September 25, 2026

Council calls for complete review of surveillance tech

September 9, 2026