Nearly 100 Local Governments Across U.S. Have Turned Off Their Flock Cameras Amid Growing Backlash

Photo by Tony Webster via Flickr under a Creative Commons License (CC BY 2.0).

The city of Tempe, Arizona announced Wednesday it had “turned off” its Flock cameras and would not renew the contract, making it one of the latest local governments to do so amid growing national concerns about privacy and constitutional rights violations tied to the mass surveillance systems.

The automated license plate recognition (ALPR) systems manufactured by Flock Safety have been installed in cities across the country. Police agencies have said the cameras help catch criminals but critics have pointed out issues with the data being improperly accessed, mistaken arrests, and questioning the invasiveness of the technology, which is designed to capture the license plates of all vehicles that pass by each camera.

Outraged citizens have delivered furious speeches at local government meetings, demanding the cameras be removed or their uses sharply curtailed. Some anti-video vigilantes have even vandalized or removed the cameras on their own.

Tempe’s city government decided to ditch its Flock cameras, announcing the move on Wednesday as being driven by concerns about their misuse. In a statement, the city said the Flock company “will remove its cameras, and previously collected data will be automatically deleted after 30 days unless it is connected to an ongoing case or investigation.”

“Tempe has turned off its Flock automated license plate reader system and will end its contract with the company,” the city’s statement said. “The cameras are no longer collecting license plate data, and Tempe will not seek another company to replace the system.”

Tempe acknowledged that while the cameras “have helped Tempe Police solve crimes, recent misuse of automated license plate reader systems in Arizona and nationwide has raised concerns about the risks that come with the technology.”

The city “has found no misuse of its own Flock system,” the statement emphasized.

“These cameras have helped our police officers do their jobs, and we don’t discount that,” said Tempe Mayor Corey Woods. “But the risk of misuse is too great. We have to be able to provide public safety in a way that maintains the trust of our community. For Tempe, that means taking these cameras down.”

Tempe residents might still see the Flock cameras around the city while the company collects its equipment, the city’s statement noted, but “[n]o new license plate data is being collected now that the system has been turned off.”

Cave Creek, Arizona, in the north Phoenix metropolitan area, made a similar announcement Wednesday that it had “administratively terminated its agreement” with Flock “effective immediately,” after “careful consideration of resident concerns, policy limitations, and recent events related to the use of the FLOCK system.”

One key issue for Cave Creek, the town’s statement noted, was the fact that “any local policy or safeguards could not extend beyond the Town’s jurisdiction, as FLOCK’s networked design allows data to be shared and accessed by external law enforcement agencies,” making it impossible for the town to “ensur[e] the level of privacy protection sought by Cave Creek officials and the community.”

Such concerns are not unwarranted. CBS Austin’s Vinny Martorano reported that Pflugerville, Texas had covered its Flock cameras in advance of a city council vote — after a resident’s public records request discovered the city’s data “has been nationally released,” with “nearly 460 agencies were tapped into the city’s Flock system;” only 80 of those agencies had first obtained approval from the city to do so.

According to a new database released by the Institute for Justice, 92 local governments across the U.S. have cancelled or not renewed their ALPR contracts. This figure does not include those who had “temporary pauses” or dropped one ALPR provider and signed up with a new one.

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