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Cambridge will end its contract with security technology company Flock Safety after its technicians installed two new cameras less than a month after the Cambridge City Council suspended their use due to privacy concerns.

The city contracted with Flock after the Council voted in February to purchase automated license plate readers. But councilors reversed course in October and ordered Flock’s cameras be temporarily shut down amid concerns that data collected by the company could be shared with the federal agencies like Customs and Border Protection.

Despite the Council order, Flock officials informed city leaders that it had put up two new cameras in late November, city spokesperson Jeremy H. Warnick confirmed. The new cameras were erected “without the City’s awareness,” Warnick wrote, because of an “outstanding work order that should have been canceled when the City originally deactivated the cameras and account.”

“Due to this material breach of our trust and the agreement, the City is terminating its contract with Flock Safety,” Warnick added. A spokesperson for Flock did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Kevin Kane, a lobbyist for Flock, said at a Tuesday hearing of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee that the cameras have been removed and none of their data was accessed.

Still, Councilors and residents have repeatedly called the security of data collected by Flock’s cameras into question. Data collected by Flock’s 90,000 cameras nationwide enters one database, which can be searched by federal and local law enforcement agencies.

Councilors raised red flags over reports that data collected by Flock cameras could be shared with federal agencies — including Immigration and Customs Enforcement — before deciding to suspend their use in October.

Kane said that Flock’s database requires law enforcement agencies to provide a justification when they search the database, which is then logged in a network audit. The system excludes data from municipalities with sanctuary ordinances if the search terms relate to immigration, according to Kane.

Gideon Epstein, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, presented screenshots of a network audit that had been obtained through a public records request at Tuesday’s meeting. Of 2.6 million searches, he said, only about 1,500 searches explicitly mentioned “immigration” or “ICE.”

Epstein said that this statistic was not comprehensive, as vague justifications like “investigation” or “wanted” could also be used to collect data for immigration enforcement without being flagged in Flock’s system.

Councilors also raised concerns that Flock may be sharing data directly with federal agencies when deciding to suspend the use of the cameras in October, not just allowing the data to be accessed.

Flock operated “limited pilot” programs with Customs and Border Protection, all of which were paused in August, according to a statement from chief executive Garrett Langley at the time. Flock has also imposed “strict limitations on federal access,” the company announced in October.

Still, councilors worried that any data sharing with federal agencies would violate the city’s sanctuary ordinance, which prevents the Cambridge Police Department from assisting ICE operations or voluntarily providing information on a resident’s citizenship status.

“At a point in time when the collaboration between local governments and federal law enforcement has been severely strained, the city recognizes and appreciates the significance of these concerns,” Warnick wrote.

—Staff writer Matan H. Josephy can be reached [email protected]. Follow him on X @matanjosephy.

—Staff writer Laurel M. Shugart can be reached at [email protected]. Follow them on X @laurelmshugart or on Threads @laurel.shugart.