A new, tentative partnership with Flock Safety in the Village of Scarsdale would add an additional 35 license plate readers, 12 live-view cameras and a drone as a first responder system, according to Mayor Justin Arest.

Flock Safety describes itself on its website as "a public safety technology ecosystem."

Most recently, polarizing conversations about the company have sprouted in the Village of Scarsdale.

Elected officials and police in the village have been discussing a partnership between the organization, and hoped to pay for the system through a federally funded grant, which has since been denied.

Nevertheless, many residents have expressed their discomfort with the system through social media, and an online petition garnering almost 450 signatures.

"There are so many questions that either this board has refused to answer or simply doesn't have the answers...and there's no urgency to have this technology right now. There really needs to be a series of serious meetings where we can actually talk to independent surveillance experts and to independent data experts, and none of that has been afforded to the residents of Scarsdale," said Mayra Kirkendall-Rodriguez, a Scarsdale resident and risk management consultant.

Many also expressed frustrations over what they say was a lack of communication from village leaders.

The American Civil Liberties Union has also raised concerns about what it calls Flock Safety's "mass surveillance network."

Mayor Justin Arest says public work sessions regarding the matter have been underway and open to the community since January.

He also added that in April, the village held another public work session, where he says the police chief and a Flock Safety representative attended with additional information.

He defends the partnership, saying many previous crimes in Scarsdale could have been prevented or solved quicker with Flock Safety...and that much of the technology is already used the village.

Some in the area say they don't mind the change.

"I'm somewhat agnostic to it. it doesn't really make me feel suddenly safer, or more spied on," said Scarsdale resident, Om, "I guess we'll implement it and see how it goes."

Now that the grant has been denied, Mayor Arest says the board will meet for a public work session in September to determine how to best proceed without the federal grant funding.

Statement from Scarsdale Mayor Justin Arest on June 27: Dear Scarsdale Community, I am writing to update you on recent efforts to secure a federal grant to increase the Village’s budgeted funding for the Police Department’s planned public safety technology upgrades. The Village was just notified that our application for this funding through Senator Gillibrand’s office was not successful at this time. As a result, the installation of additional license plate readers, live-view cameras, and the deployment of a drone as a first responder will be postponed. The Police Department has been asked to return to the Board of Trustees at a public work session in September to present a revised plan that does not include federal grant funding. Following that discussion, the Board will determine how best to proceed. We remain committed to an open and transparent process and to responsibly meeting the safety needs of our community. Thank you for your continued engagement. Sincerely, Justin Arest Mayor

Statement from New York American Civil Liberties Union on June 30: “When local governments adopt Flock surveillance technology, they risk playing fast and loose with New Yorkers' safety and privacy rights,” said Daniel Schwarz, Senior Privacy and Technology Strategist at the NYCLU. “This highly invasive software captures billions of location records across the country — collecting information about where people work, who they visit, which medical clinics they go to, what protests they attend, and even their places of worship. Flock Security also poses an especially serious threat to historically marginalized groups, including immigrants, and those seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care. No one should have to live under the constant gaze of mass surveillance, or have their data handed over to out-of-state or federal entities — we urgently need stronger guardrails on this rapidly expanding, centralized surveillance infrastructure.”

Flock Safety statement on June 30: "All the data collected via Flock devices are wholly owned by the customer, in this case the local Police Department, and they determine access and use cases, according to their own policies and local laws. All data is stored securely and deleted after 30 days by default...It is encrypted, transmitted securely to the cloud, and stored in AWS (encrypted the entire time). All CJIS data is stored in AWS GovCloud, which maintains the stringent level of security that government entities require."