A police officer in New Bedford has been accused of using the city’s Flock Safety camera system to track her former girlfriend in the latest controversy over the surveillance technology.
In an affidavit filed Monday in New Bedford District Court, a woman seeking an abuse prevention order against Officer Emily Pacheco wrote that she was in a romantic relationship with the officer.
After they broke up in April, the woman wrote, Pacheco frequently tried to contact her and on multiple occasions showed up her home and workplace unannounced.
The woman also claimed that Pacheco looked up her license plate in the police department’s Flock system, and is now the subject of an internal affairs investigation.
“As of recently there is an open IA investigation of her running my license plate through Flock to follow me,” the woman wrote in the affidavit.
Flock’s automated cameras use AI to convert information recorded about license plates into searchable data, according to the company’s website.
Police in New Bedford announced Tuesday that they would temporarily stop using Flock technology starting this week and review the department’s use of the cameras.
In the announcement, police officials said said an officer had been placed on administrative leave and that internal affairs investigations are ongoing based on “recent technology audits.”
A department spokesperson declined to identify the officer who was placed on leave or answer questions about the internal investigations.
Neither Pacheco nor her attorney could immediately be reached for comment on Friday. The woman who sought the abuse prevention order also could not be reached for comment.
The accusation against Pacheco was first reported by the New Bedford Light.
A judge granted the abuse prevention order against Pacheco on Monday and extended it Thursday for six months, finding that there is a “substantial likelihood of immediate danger of abuse,” according to court filings.
The judge also ruled that Pacheco may not possess a gun.
Allegations of officers misusing Flock technology have surfaced across the United States in recent years. A police chief in Kansas had his law enforcement certification revoked after a state commission found he looked up license plates belonging to his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend in the Flock system more than 200 times in about five months.
In June, an officer in Milwaukee admitted to tracking his ex-girlfriend with Flock technology, according to court filings.
Amid increasing privacy concerns, several communities in Massachusetts have chosen to end their contracts with Flock and discontinue their use of the company’s cameras. Others have stopped using them temporarily as scrutiny mounts.
Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley announced Thursday that the company plans to tighten the system’s guardrails to make it harder for officers to misuse the technology.
Among the new changes will be a requirement that law enforcement users relate each search in Flock to a specific investigation they are working on, the company said.
The New Bedford Police Department said it first acquired Flock technology in 2024.
A “Frequently Asked Questions” page about Flock cameras posted on the department’s website states that officers and detectives need an “approved law enforcement reason” to search Flock data.
Law enforcement agencies do not need a warrant to access information collected by Flock cameras.
In a statement posted to social media on Wednesday, the New Bedford Police Union acknowledged “ongoing investigations concerning the alleged misuse of law-enforcement technology” by New Bedford police officers.
“Allegations are not findings of misconduct, and every officer is entitled to a fair, thorough, and impartial investigative process before conclusions are reached,” the union wrote.
The union did not name Pacheco in its statement and could not be reached for comment.
Ariela Lopez can be reached at ariela.lopez@globe.com. Follow her on X @ariela__lopez.