Articles
What the Flock?
An index of reporting, court records, and public filings showing what happens beyond Flock's public-safety claims. These are the documented problems, mistakes, and abuses that can be easy to miss when the story comes only from the vendor or the agencies using the cameras.
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Fight Creepy ALPR Cameras ("Get The Flock Out")
aclu.org
The ACLU's campaign page against ALPR deployment, with an organizing toolkit for residents seeking to end local contracts. It puts the Flock network at roughly 120,000 cameras, states that fewer than one percent of scanned vehicles connect to a crime, and catalogs uses by federal immigration agents and against critics of police departments.
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Narragansett council votes to end Flock surveillance camera program
bostonglobe.com
Narragansett's town council voted 5-0 to terminate its Flock Safety contract, which ran to 2027, and to absorb any cancellation fees. Residents and members raised data-misuse concerns, and a former councilwoman noted the program had outgrown its authorization as a one-year pilot. The town operated three cameras; a fourth was stolen.
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Flock sees controversial camera contracts canceled in 23 states
washingtonexaminer.com
Roughly 23 city councils have voted to cancel, reject, or deactivate Flock Safety license plate readers since January 2026, with about 98 doing so since 2021, according to the activist group Deflock. Harrisonburg and Elkton, Virginia, Framingham, Massachusetts, and Saranac Lake, New York, are among them, citing Fourth Amendment and data-sharing concerns. Flock says agencies own their data and set retention schedules.
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Police are spending opioid settlement funds on Flock cameras
motherjones.com
Mother Jones identified 19 law enforcement agencies in ten states that spent more than $920,000 in opioid settlement funds on Flock cameras and competing license plate readers since 2024, plus six localities funding contracts with the Peregrine data platform. Officials argued the cameras address drug trafficking, while addiction policy advocates and residents in Morgantown and Pensacola objected that the money should fund treatment.
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6 more Ga. police department employees under investigation over alleged Flock camera misuse
wrdw.com
Savannah Police placed four officers and two civilian employees on administrative leave after an internal audit found searches unrelated to law enforcement, including queries about acquaintances and family members. One officer allegedly gave an outside agency access to the department's Flock system. All six cases went to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
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Map Shows Cities That Have Rejected, Deactivated Flock Cameras
newsweek.com
Drawing on DeFlock's crowd-sourced data, Newsweek counts 95 cities that have rejected ALPR systems: 22 deactivating cameras, 47 canceling contracts, and 25 turning down proposed agreements. Ypsilanti, Michigan is identified as the only jurisdiction with an outright ban. Officials cited privacy risk, federal data access, and inadequate public consultation.
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Monroe County cancels contract with Flock Safety
ipm.org
Monroe County commissioners voted 2-0 to end their Flock Safety contract more than a year early, paying roughly $3,000 to remove six sheriff's office cameras. Commissioner Julie Thomas acknowledged the cameras' usefulness but said "the way the data has been abused...is terrible." The sheriff raised no objection. Bloomington had declined to renew its own contract in April 2026.
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Inside the growing police use and misuse of Flock's license-plate reader cameras
cnn.com
CNN documented a pattern of officers across multiple states searching Flock's network for personal reasons. Milwaukee internal affairs found an officer had used the system to track a romantic partner's location 124 times and that partner's ex 55 times. Flock's chief executive pointed to a new audit-assistance tool that flags abnormal use.
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Flock Safety Employees Watched Kids' Gymnastics Room to Pitch Surveillance Tech (Updated)
yahoo.com
Public records obtained by a Dunwoody, Georgia resident show Flock Safety staff, including a vice president, viewed cameras labeled "Gymnastics" and "Main Pool Right" at a Jewish community center during sales demonstrations for prospective police clients. Flock's CEO apologized, and the city council renewed the contract with added data-ownership guardrails. The piece also notes Georgia officer misuse arrests, camera vandalism, and LAPD letting its Flock contract expire.
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License Plate Reader Policy (Flock Safety)
flocksafety.com
The vendor's own published policy, included here as a primary source. It states that customers own the data their cameras collect, that records are hard-deleted on a rolling 30-day basis by default but adjustable by customer request, that customers decide whom to share with, and that Flock uses under one percent of images for machine learning.
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Flock cameras track more than your license plate, and they're spreading fast
engadget.com
An overview of Flock Safety's camera network describes natural-language vehicle and person searches, over 100,000 ALPRs nationwide, and data sharing that gave ICE access via local police, including more than 1,400 Denver searches logged on ICE's behalf. It documents exposed cameras found by researcher Benn Jordan, dozens of officer stalking cases, misread plates leading to stops, and Denver's contract cancellation followed by an Axon award.
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More License Plate Reader Mission Creep: School Residency Verification, Background Checks, and Noise Complaints
eff.org
EFF's review of Flock search logs found police running license plate queries for purposes far outside criminal investigation. School police in Buford, Georgia logged more than 375 searches to verify student residency between January 2025 and March 2026, over half of all their ALPR searches. Twenty-six agencies used the system on noise complaints, some querying thousands of camera networks.
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Woman wrongfully arrested in deadly I-4 crash speaks out after charges dropped
wesh.com
Lindsey Isaacs spent 13 days in jail after Florida Highway Patrol accused her of causing a fatal I-4 crash, citing a Flock license-plate reader that captured her tag three miles from the scene two minutes before the collision. Her attorney used time-distance analysis and vehicle inspection to show she was not involved. Prosecutors dropped all charges and arrested another woman driving a maroon Durango.
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‘Creepy surveillance’: why some cities are shutting down Flock cameras amid privacy concerns
theguardian.com
Residents and council members in Dunwoody, Georgia pressed Flock Safety over a terms-of-service change and hacking demonstrations, deferring rather than cancelling a roughly half-million-dollar annual contract. Security researchers showed some Condor cameras streaming to the open internet and firmware passwords readable on a purchased device; Flock disputes the severity. Mountain View, Santa Cruz, South Pasadena, Flagstaff and Denver ended or paused programs, citing federal and out-of-state searches of local plate data.
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Traffic Violation! License Plate Reader Mission Creep Is Already Here
eff.org
Georgia State Patrol cited a motorcyclist in December 2025 for holding a phone, with the ticket reading "CAPTURED ON FLOCK CAMERA." Flock has said publicly that its ALPR system is not used for traffic enforcement, but its partner program now lists six traffic-enforcement technology companies, and public records show speed cameras connected to its network.
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Why some cities are canceling Flock license plate reader contracts
npr.org
NPR reports on municipalities ending Flock Safety agreements, with local officials citing the prospect of federal immigration agents reaching data collected on residents and a lack of transparency about who can search it. The piece covers both the reasoning of councils that voted to cancel and the responses of police departments that wanted the cameras kept.
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A federal judge ruled Norfolk's Flock surveillance cameras don't invade people's privacy – yet
whro.org
Judge Mark Davis granted summary judgment to Norfolk on 27 January 2026, holding that the city's 176 Flock cameras and 21-day retention window do not amount to an unconstitutional search. He warned the analysis could change as systems expand, writing that in Norfolk "the answer is: not today." The plaintiffs, represented by the Institute for Justice, plan to appeal.
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Joplin officer no longer employed after alleged misuse of license plate tracking system
kctv5.com
A Joplin, Missouri police officer left the department amid an internal affairs investigation into misuse of the Flock license plate reader system, allegedly searching one plate roughly 395 times over 14 months while citing only "DWI" or "Warrants" without case numbers. Activist group Deflock Joplin says its analysis found the user accounted for about 25% of departmental Flock queries and questions the contract's approval and missing written policy. Police pledged monthly audits and cited cases solved with the system.
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Eugene and Springfield both announce end of Flock camera usage
opb.org
Eugene and Springfield, Oregon, announced they are ending use of Flock Safety license plate cameras, citing unspecified vulnerabilities and limitations affecting data security and operational control. Eugene terminated its contract outright, while Springfield will remove cameras that were never activated but said it may seek another ALPR vendor. Opponents cited federal surveillance risks; police had credited the cameras with faster stolen-vehicle recoveries.
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How Cops Are Using Flock Safety's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists
eff.org
EFF analyzed more than 12 million Flock Safety ALPR searches logged by over 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025, obtained through public records requests. More than 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches citing protest-related reasons, including "No Kings" rallies, immigration protests, and Direct Action Everywhere actions. Roughly 20 percent of all searches reviewed listed vague reasons such as "investigation" or "suspect."