Pedestrians and motorists passing through Pawtuxet Village may notice something different: a black, solar-powered pole camera that was installed last week on a traffic island on the Warwick side of the river.

The camera was a surprise to village residents. They had not been given any notice of the camera.

The Rhode Island ACLU, according to policy associate Hannah Stern, called the installation without prior community input “disturbing.”

Media reports indicate dozens of these traffic cameras throughout Cranston; one was installed recently on Sockanosett Cross Road.

The cameras were manufactured and installed by Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based company, as part of a Cranston Police Department project.

According to a statement shared on Monday with NBC 10, Cranston Police Chief Michael Winquist said the city is using the cameras on a trial basis to target crime. Winquist could not be reached for further comment Tuesday.

In a brief interview on Tuesday, Chief of Staff Anthony Moretti shared that there would be a press conference at the Cranston Police Station today at 3:30 p.m. where Chief Winquist is expected to share more details about the project.

Moretti said that the “cameras will only be used for criminal investigations, not traffic stops or fines.”

He also said that the data obtained by the cameras will only be available to Cranston police officers, and erased periodically. Unless officers decide otherwise, the traffic cameras will remain “indefinitely,” said Moretti.

In an email on Tuesday, Warwick Police Chief Brad Connor shared that the camera was “inadvertently placed at that location rather than the Cranston side of the border, but it serves the same purpose in monitoring the roadway.”

Connor added that the camera will likely remain at that location, and the Warwick Police Department is in discussion with other police departments on how to work together on the project.

According to Connor, the cameras have also been installed in Pawtucket and Woonsocket. Warwick Mayor Frank Picozzi said he first learned of the cameras on social media. As for the one that was apparently mistakenly installed in Warwick he said, “finders keepers.”

According to the company’s website, Flock Safety cameras are in use in more 1,200 communities across the U.S. and their “proprietary devices and cloud-based software reduces crime by over 70 percent.”

The cameras, which are touted as the “first cameras to see like a detective,” are able to capture multiple high-quality images of license plates of a car traveling up to 74 miles per hour via intentionally short shutter speeds. The camera has a “narrow field of view” that’s capable of capturing about one and a half lanes of traffic.

Additionally, the Flock Safety technology allows users to filter their search through captured images based on the vehicle’s specific characteristics, including body type, make, color, and more, which is helpful when the suspect vehicle has no visible plates, according to the website.

Hannah Stern, a policy associate at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Rhode Island shared in an interview on Tuesday that the organization opposes the cameras “for two disturbing facets.”

“It appears that these cameras have been installed with no public or community discussion,” she said. “We have these cameras bring installed which have the potential to track where citizens are going, when, and how often.”

At the time of the interview, Stern was unaware of the press briefing planned for today.

“This just underpins the concerns about community input after something that already happened,” she said. “It’s a very backwards way of approaching it.”

Stern also said the cameras posed “disturbing implications for privacy and surveillance.”

“There’s a concern about tracking the residents of Rhode Island,” said Stern. “It’s just as disturbing, if not more so, than what crime they’re trying to solve.”

While she did acknowledge it’s a potential solution to community safety, Stern said the ACLU views the surveillance system as “onerous and vague”.

While the ACLU may be against the traffic cameras, local residents support the surveillance.

“So many pedestrians cross at that island, this is a good thing,” said Pawtuxet Village resident and Gaspee Days Committee member Judy Hoffman in a brief interview on Tuesday.

Hoffman, who frequently goes for walks through the Village and along Narragansett Parkway, said she’s “seen an increase in speed” from motorists and appreciates the extra safety measures.