Estimated Read Time: 3.5 to 4.5 minutes
[Political Analysis]
Municipalities are finding that once they are installed, they are very, very hard to remove. As more cities and towns feel the backlash against ALPRs and start taking them down, Flock is saying, "Not so fast!"
404 Media
Jason Koebler
Jul 22, 2026
For weeks, Verona, Wisconsin tried to get Flock to remove the three automated license plate cameras that its city council had voted to stop using. Flock told city employees not to remove the cameras, and a Flock employee told city officials that they were unsure whether the cameras could be remotely disabled, which led the town to decide to put black plastic trash bags over them until Flock eventually removed the cameras itself, according to emails obtained using a public records request by 404 Media.
The emails give insight into the process cities face while deFlocking themselves after voting not to renew a contract with the AI surveillance company. As we’ve previously reported, multiple cities around the country have decided to put black trash bags over their Flock cameras while they wait for them to be removed; this is in part because, until the cameras are physically removed by Flock, cities are unsure whether they have the legal right to remove the cameras themselves and are not sure whether they can disable their recording operations. The emails show Verona city officials telling each other that they had made multiple requests to Flock to have the cameras removed, and show a work order from Flock in which the cameras were set to have maintenance performed on them rather than being removed.
But there are even more cameras that aren't used by cities—private companies use them, and that raises further questions. For instance, who is responsible if the camera system produces a false positive... who is liable?
A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media that the discrepancy occurred because Verona voted to not renew its contract rather than outright canceling it mid-term. It is clear from emails obtained by 404 Media, however, that Verona city officials wanted the cameras to come down as quickly as possible.
Then there is a question about Flock itself!
The ACLU documents how an automatic license plate reader company has lied about its operations, signaling a need for reputable governments to avoid working with Flock Safety.
ACLU
Chad Marlow & Jay Stanley
July 2, 2026
During a city council meeting in a suburb of Wisconsin in April, the city of Oshkosh considered whether it should approve a contract to use automatic license plate readers (ALPR) from Flock Safety, a prominent company that provides ALPRs to law enforcement agencies across the country. During the meeting, one city council member asked Flock if the company’s ALPR system created heat maps that could reveal where a particular vehicle had driven over a period of time. Flock’s chief information security officer, who was in attendance, told the council that Flock’s system did not “create a pattern or heat map of an individual’s movement” through the tracking of their vehicles. At the end of that meeting, the Oshkosh City Council approved a contract with Flock. The very next morning, the city learned that Flock had lied.
Later that day, the city council reconvened to discuss what it had learned. Confronting Flock, Oshkosh Deputy Mayor Joe Stephenson said “I don't know how this body can govern if someone tells untruths, mistruths, exaggerated truths. I don't know how I can make a decision or discern what's right or what's wrong, or even the capabilities of this system if you lie to me.”
[…]
This is far from the first time Flock has misled the public and elected officials. The company has demonstrated a pattern of treating legitimate operational questions and concerns not as problems to be solved, but rather as mere public relations issues.
In Colorado, Loveland Police Chief Tim Doran raised concern that federal agents were accessing the town’s ALPR data. Flock responded by telling the chief that federal agencies no longer had access to Loveland’s license plate readers, and had their CEO reiterate to the press that federal data sharing was a non-issue because Flock had no federal contracts. After contradictory information later came to light, the company was forced to admit that it did, in fact, have contracts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security (DHS) for pilot projects that gave those agencies direct access to license data. “We clearly communicated poorly,” Flock’s CEO said, acknowledging that Flock’s “public statements inadvertently provided inaccurate information.”
This doesn’t exactly give you warm, fuzzy feelings.
Flock knew that, despite not being a customer, ICE had indirect access to Flock’s data and system through the company’s state and local law enforcement customers. The issue was never about having direct access to Flock’s data, it was about having any access to the data. But rather than address these data security and control issues on their merits, Flock released a misleading blog which reads as an attempt to confuse the public and create a false sense of security among its potential government customers. Ultimately, Flock was forced to accept that its denials were simply not credible. The CEO admitted Flock was used for immigration enforcement but argued that such matters were not Flock’s problem.
One of the major investors behind Flock is Peter Thiel, who gave $15 million to a single Super PAC backing JD Vance, $1.25 million to Trump’s 2016 campaign, and tens of millions more to conservative PACs. The venture capital mega-donors who fund Flock have poured massive fortunes into the Republican Party.
“The legal issues with this contract are numerous, but we are starting with how it was awarded in the first place,” Sparks said. “Simply put, the city acted hastily and did not follow its own laws when approving this contract, so it should be considered null and void from the start.”
“City code is clear that a private company cannot use property for commercial purposes,” Sparks added. “If the city wanted to grant Flock the right to use property belonging to the City of Huntington, there’s a proper process by which to do that. That process includes public notice, a public hearing, and other procedural safeguards to make sure that city property is used appropriately.”
[…]
“As other towns and cities are waking up to the egregious abuses of this technology, Huntington officials worked behind closed doors for months to thwart the will of their constituents and push this invasive surveillance on the city,” Baumwell said. “We will not stand by while the city runs roughshod over the will of the people and the privacy rights of every person in Huntington.”
Welcome to the brave new world of Big Brother.
In my town, they installed them on all the roads leading in and out. I also noticed them in the town next to us. When it was mentioned on local Facebook pages, all these people thought it was great to keep the "undesirables" out, complaining about how it was the Democrats' fault that crime was so high!
But here’s the thing: the town has a crime safety grade of A+. The overall crime rate is 55% below the national average. The violent crime risk is about 1 in 521, and the property crime risk is about 1 in 61. This makes the town safer than 100% of major U.S. cities with populations over 50,000, according to the latest data from the FBI and local law enforcement (source: DoorProfit).
Yet Republicans keep lying about crime! The news always starts with "Breaking News!" at the top of their broadcasts, giving the false impression of rampant crime.
“News stories from around the nation have shown the dangers of giving officers unfettered access to ALPR cameras, which are now in thousands of local communities,” said IJ Attorney Michael Soyfer. “These cameras collect massive amounts of data about ordinary people’s movements, data that can be mined to reveal habits, patterns, and behaviors. This unusual decision to wade into a lawsuit to defend an ever-growing mass surveillance network should raise alarm bells over how the federal government plans to use this surveillance.”
Industry players have not been forthcoming about their involvement with the feds. One major ALPR company, Flock Safety, insisted for months that it had no federal contracts. But in response to journalists’ questions, Flock eventually admitted that wasn’t true and that it had been running a “pilot program” with Customs and Border Protection (CBP). In the wake of that admission, Flock announced in August it was ending its partnership with federal law enforcement.
These private companies are not bound by the Constitution. What they are claiming is that they have a right to set up ALPRs alongside public roads, collect data, and sell that data to anyone willing to buy it!
Then we have the misuse of that data!
Advocates say it’s too easy to abuse automated license plate reader technology.
Mother Jones
Sophie Hurwitz
July 18, 2026
Flock cameras—solar-powered, automated license plate readers, weighing less than 3 pounds and designed to be unobtrusive—can be found on 80,000 street corners throughout the country. The company behind the cameras built an $8.3 billion business empowering officers to track people’s movements. Nationwide, Flock cameras log billions of license plates each month. And now dozens of reports are emerging of police using the cameras not to solve crimes, but to stalk their partners and exes.
[…]
But the backlash against Flock and other ALPRs is growing. The technology, activists say, holds potential for misuse. And even when it’s used as intended, some researchers say the company’s data sharing practices lead to privacy rights violations. Throughout 2025, at least 30 municipalities canceled their Flock contracts. Grassroots groups such as DeFlock have built maps showing the public where these license-plate readers are located. (Langley called DeFlock and other activists “terroristic” last year, and apologized this week.)
And Marlow of the ACLU expects the pushback to keep getting louder. “In these incredibly divisive political times, we’re actually seeing the rare issue that unites Americans: opposition to government surveillance,” Marlow said. “And I don’t think it’s going anywhere. I think this movement is only going to grow.”
I think we are on the threshold of fulfilling the 1984 prophecy of Big Brother—but with an oligarchical twist!
[/Political Analysis]
