A city in New York has been torn apart after police installed AI-enabled surveillance cameras without the city council's permission.

Police in Troy, a town of about 52,000 people, first installed the Flock license plate readers in 2021 following a series of drive-by shootings, Deputy Police Chief Steven Barker told the Washington Post.

Chief Barker said the department followed the normal procurement procedure for the contract with Flock Safety, which is now worth $156,000 for two years.

But City Council President Sue Steele said council members were not aware of the contract until residents started expressing safety concerns in March, declaring that the police department installed more than two dozen cameras over the years without council approval or citizen input.

The city council is now looking into why no one other than the police department signed off on the initial contract, as anything over $35,000 typically requires council approval.

'I think it was done secretly, and when you aren't transparent, that angers people,' Steele said. 'It touches on the nerve of "1984" and "Big Brother is watching you."'

At the same time, the Democratic city council is suing Mayor Carmella Mantello after she issued an emergency declaration to ensure the city's continued use of the surveillance cameras and authorized a $78,000 payment to Flock Safety.

The suit notes that the city council had authorized the city auditor to pause payments to Flock Safety until they could meet with representatives from Flock and resolve all outstanding privacy issues and concerns.

The city council argues in the suit, filed in New York State Supreme Court on May 11, that Mantello abused her powers by declaring a public safety emergency.

It aims to declare the mayor's actions unlawful, nullifying the contract renewal.

'Because we live in a democracy, policy disputes are resolved through the democratic lawmaking process, not at the whims of a single chief executive,' the city council said in a statement to WRGB after filing the suit. 

'The actions taken today are a powerful next step to restore the balance of power at city hall and rebuild public trust in our elected officials and local government,' the council continued.

'The mayor has gone far beyond her lawful authority. If left unchallenged, it sets a dangerous precedent where the mayor can claim a public safety emergency any time she disagrees with the legislative branch, creating an unchecked power that echoes what is happening in Washington.'

The city council is being supported in the lawsuit by a group of residents who have expressed their concerns over the security cameras.

'Mayor Mantello has no authority whatsoever to declare a public emergency just because she didn't get her way in terms of policy,' Troy Residents Against Flock Cameras said.

'It's time for the mayor to wake up and smell the coffee: the people of Troy do not want the Flock cameras. Her support for these mass surveillance tools leaves her in a political minority.

'We hope the lawsuit is successful in striking down the emergency declaration, and that it allows the city auditor to stop paying Flock Safety Company for an arguably illegal contract to begin with,' the group added. 

But Mantello has defended the city's use of the AI-enabled cameras, as she and the local police claim they are useful in helping to fight crime.

'Public safety has always been - and will remain my administration's top priority,' the mayor said in her own statement.

'From the beginning, we took residents' privacy concerns seriously and implemented safeguards, including disabling the national search function within the Flock Safety system. We continue to work actively with our police department and the district attorney's office on additional protections and oversight.

'I believed there was a path to share that work collaboratively with the city council - to protect civil liberties while ensuring law enforcement has effective tools to keep our neighborhoods safe,' she continued.

'Unfortunately, the council has chosen frivolous litigation instead of collaboration.

'That does not change our mission,' she argued. 'My administration will continue doing everything necessary to keep Troy safe, address crime proactively and ensure those who break the law are held accountable.

'The people of Troy expect leadership focused on results - not political threats - and that is exactly what we will deliver.'

The widely-used Flock license plate readers have raised privacy concerns across the US as they were installed in more than 6,000 different communities, according to the Washington Post.

National mapping project, DeFlock estimates there are now more than 90,000 of the AI-enabled cameras in use across the US and that more than 60 communities have canceled or rejected contracts with Flock and similar companies.

At the heart of the controversy over these license plate readers is the amount of data they collect.

The Flock cameras take photos of every single vehicle that passes by and creates a digital 'fingerprint' that includes data including bumper stickers on the vehicle or gun racks. 

'The Flock cameras are not good ole' every day cameras,' Bryan Paz-Hernandez, facilitator with Troy Residents Against Flock Cameras, told News 10. 'They are very advanced AI cameras that, again, can get a lot of information from their feed. 

'We don't want these cameras up. We don't want them up again. That data can get into the wrong hands. It can be hacked - it could be shared with ICE.'

Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University and the author of 'Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance' also argued that the cameras enable law enforcement to monitor public spaces with little accountability and track driver whereabouts that could reveal personal movements - like attending an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting or visiting an immigration lawyer.

'This inescapable network of surveillance gives police a new power that they didn't have,' Guthrie Ferguson said.

Amid the concerns, Flock canceled a pilot program last year with Customs and Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to combat fentanyl and human trafficking.

But privacy experts said federal immigration officers are still able to access Flock's database through local law enforcement efforts.

In Troy, Police Chief Daniel DeWolf said the cameras are not constantly monitored and are only accessed by authorized officers.

He insisted that the data is not shared with any outside agencies, including ICE, though Steele claimed to WRGB that the data had been shared in the national database until other elected officials raised concerns in March.

'There's misinformation out there about these cameras, that they can see people,' DeWolf said. 'It has nothing to do with that. It just takes a picture of the back of the car and the license plate.'

He also noted that the surveillance cameras have provided the local police department with information to solve major crimes, including two homicides.

DeWolf further emphasized that the cameras are all in public areas.

'It's on a public street. You know what I mean?' he told News 10. 'You have no expectation of privacy when driving your car on a public street.' 

A company spokesman similarly told the Washington Post that the devices support 'communities across the country in addressing crime and locating missing people.'

'At Flock, we believe safety and privacy should go hand in hand, which is why our technology is built around transparency, accountability and local control,' Chris Castaldo, Flock Safety's chief information officer, said in a statement.

'Our platform involves safeguards like audit trails to help ensure accountability at each step,' he noted. 

Still, Shikole Stuber, a city council member who works in cyber security, said the company hasn't provided the council with any compliance reports or documentation showing how it is safeguarding its data after repeated requests.

At the same time, she said, police have released only partial audits of the material it has obtained.

'I am absolutely concerned with the security of Flock still,' Stuber said.

As the city council now works to halt Mantello's continued use of the cameras, it has also released a proposal for a new law that would limit the use of the cameras - requiring most of the data to be deleted after just two days.

Mantello has called the proposition 'dangerous, misguided and a gift to criminals.' 

The Daily Mail has reached out to Mantello's office, the city council and Flock Safety for comment.