Article 94 Polk Main Motion¶
Arlington Town Meeting — Main Motion
ARTICLE NO. 94 Dated: 4/11/2026
I, Sam Polk, do hereby submit the following Motion:
That Town Meeting does and hereby resolves as follows:
WHEREAS, “Automatic License Plate Recognition” (“ALPR”) systems are networks of fixed or
mobile cameras and software that capture images of vehicle license plates and convert them into
searchable data, typically with associated date/time and location information;
WHEREAS, ALPR systems can create detailed location histories about residents, visitors, and
workers, and therefore raise civil liberties concerns and risks of misuse, over-collection, and
unauthorized disclosure;
WHEREAS, poor data governance and inadequate security controls have, in some jurisdictions,
resulted in the public exposure or improper disclosure of sensitive vehicle-location information;
WHEREAS, in some jurisdictions, ALPR systems and ALPR-derived location data have been
used to identify or track individuals seeking reproductive healthcare or engaging in
constitutionally protected First Amendment activity, including peaceful protest;
WHEREAS, federal immigration enforcement agencies, including U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (“ICE”), have used access to large ALPR databases to locate and
apprehend individuals, and nationwide data-sharing practices can create pathways for local data
to be searched far beyond the community that collected it;
WHEREAS, ALPR systems are increasingly being deployed by municipalities in Massachusetts,
including in nearby communities such as Waltham and Boston;
WHEREAS, in other nearby communities, including Cambridge, Watertown, and Natick, ALPR
programs have been paused or canceled following public concerns about privacy, data-sharing,
procurement process, oversight, and vendor compliance with local directives or contractual
obligations;
WHEREAS, the Town of Arlington has a long history of pursuing equity and safety for all
residents, including through the Town’s 2017 Community Trust Act Resolution, the Town’s
Community Equity Audit process, the Town’s 2025 Racial Equity Statement, and the Arlington
Police Department (APD)’s published Federal Immigration Law policy emphasizing non-
participation in civil immigration enforcement in support of community trust in public safety;
WHEREAS, as an accredited agency, APD develops and regularly reviews policies consistent
with applicable law, accreditation standards, and professional best practices, and invites,
considers, and incorporates community feedback through established Town channels, including
engagement with relevant Town boards and commissions, to inform policy updates;
WHEREAS, Arlington previously piloted an ALPR program, and APD leadership discontinued
the program after internal review indicated that the system’s alerts were largely associated with
minor traffic matters and appeared to fall disproportionately on lower-income community
members, raising concerns about equity;
WHEREAS, Arlington has similarly recognized the need for strong safeguards when
surveillance technologies are considered or deployed, including through Article 21 of the 2025
Annual Town Meeting, “ACCEPTANCE OF LEGISLATION / CHAPTER 399 OF THE ACTS
OF 2024” (which included statutory data governance provisions for school bus violation
detection monitoring systems, including limits on use, retention, and reporting), and through the
2022 Town Meeting face surveillance resolution entitled “A Resolution that Government use of
Face Surveillance should be Further Limited in Order to Conform with Our Values”;
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that Town Meeting opposes any new deployment or
substantial expansion of ALPR systems by or on behalf of the Town of Arlington unless and
until the Town has publicly adopted, after public review and comment, (i) a publicly available
ALPR impact report describing the proposed system and purpose and assessing equity, civil-
rights, and privacy impacts and mitigations; and (ii) a publicly available ALPR use policy setting
forth authorized uses and key safeguards for retention and deletion, access controls, logging and
auditing, and any permitted data-sharing agreements;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the ALPR impact report and ALPR use policy shall
together, at minimum, address the ALPR system’s purpose and prohibited uses; equity impacts
and civil-rights and civil-liberties implications, and proposed mitigations; retention and deletion
practices; access controls, logging, and auditing; any data-sharing or standing-access/real-time-
feed arrangements; vendor restrictions on secondary uses (e.g., training of vendor-owned
artificial intelligence or machine learning models); and annual aggregate public reporting;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Town Meeting urges the Select Board and Town Manager
not to propose or enter into new contracts for, or substantial expansions of, ALPR systems unless
and until strong statewide driver-privacy protections are enacted and robust local safeguards are
adopted through a transparent public process;
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Town Meeting expresses its support for state driver-privacy
legislation, including H.3755, “An Act Establishing Driver Privacy Protections,” and any
substantially similar successor legislation that protects Massachusetts drivers by limiting the
collection, retention, use, and sharing of ALPR data and other vehicle-location information, and
urges Arlington’s state legislative delegation to support and prioritize such measures; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that Town Meeting directs the Town Clerk to transmit certified
copies of this resolution to the State Senator and State Representatives who represent residents of
the Town of Arlington in the Massachusetts State Legislature.
Comment:
Initial submission of a main motion. This is not a revision, substitute, or amendment to a
previously submitted motion.
Respectfully submitted,
/s/ Sam Polk
Precinct 12
Date Voted: _____________
Action Taken: ___________
