# Cities Are Now Canceling Flock, But There's a Catch
# Silicon Cowboy — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAXkvvFPkcc

If you've been following privacy news
lately, it looks like we just scored a
massive win. Cities and local police
departments across the country are
suddenly ripping down Flock Safety
license plate cameras. Denver and
Douglas County, for example, both
canceled their contracts with Flock.
This is due in part to the journalists
that have been spreading awareness and
exposing the warrantless tracking, the
unauthorized federal data sharing,
officer stalking cases, and the glaring
technical security flaws. Except, it's
slowly becoming much more clear that
cities aren't backing off of
surveillance or passing new privacy
protections. Instead, local councils are
quietly handing over tens of millions of
taxpayer dollars to a massive defense
and public safety giant, a company with
deep pockets, enterprise grade software,
and a much more sophisticated strategy
compared to Flock. In this video, we're
breaking down the details around the
canceled Flock contracts, revealing the
company that's quietly capturing the
market, and exploring the three reasons
why this hidden switch might actually be
leaving us all worse off than before. To
understand why cities are ditching
Flock, you first have to look at how
fast the company grew and how fast the
cracks started to appear. Flock built
its company on a simple proposition:
cheap, solar-powered, cloud-connected
ALPR cameras. They didn't just sell to
police, they pitched directly to HOAs,
private businesses, and neighborhood
groups. By tying tens of thousands of
cameras in a single, searchable,
national network, Flock turned isolated
street cameras into a giant nationwide
dragnet. The problem, however, is that a
dragnet surveillance system creates
massive opportunities for abuse and
operational issues. In cities like
Denver, records revealed that Flock data
was being shared with federal agencies,
often bypassing local policies and laws
without public disclosure or city
approval. Comprehensive investigations
by the EFF revealed law enforcement
agencies using Flock search feature to
target specific demographics. And in In
to officer abuse cases, such as where
police were caught using the tool to
stalk ex-partners, security researchers
uncovered concerning vulnerabilities in
Flock Safety. This includes hard-coded
credentials, unencrypted code, and
exposed live stream feeds accessible via
public admin control panels. When city
officials realized their neighborhood
safety tool was exposing them to
lawsuits, regulatory investigations, and
security breaches, the political heat
forced them to begin looking for other
companies to pivot to. And this is where
Axon comes in. You may know Axon as the
company that makes tasers and police
body cameras, but over the last decade,
Axon has evolved into a massive software
and hardware ecosystem player. When
cities began canceling Flock contracts,
Axon was ready with their own ALPR
lineup, including Axon Fleet 3 mobile
cameras and Axon Outpost stationary
license plate readers. Police
departments and city managers have been
choosing Axon for a few reasons. Axon is
an established defense contractor with a
strong background in legal and technical
infrastructure. While Flock is built
much more like a fast-moving Silicon
Valley startup, Axon pitches itself as
enterprise-ready, compliant, and having
a secure system. Axon also comes with an
entire pipeline of products. When police
departments use Axon, the license plate
readers feed directly into Axon
Evidence, linking ALPR data directly to
officer body cam footage, dash cam
video, and automated AI report
generation tools. They also have drone
integration. In places like Douglas
County, Colorado, the $22.8 million
contract replacing 50 Flock cameras was
for 100 Axon Outpost readers, and it was
also bundled with a county-wide drone as
first responder system. On paper, this
sounds like cities are moving to a
larger, much more professional company,
but the impact on regular people just
trying to live their lives is basically
the same, if not worse. During Denver's
abrupt contract swap, the ACLU of
Colorado said that switching vendors
without implementing strict statutory
privacy rules simply changes which
corporation runs the dragnet. Now, let
me share three major concerns privacy
advocates are mentioning. First is the
move towards multimodal surveillance.
Flock primarily relies on fixed pole
cameras reading license plates and
vehicle attributes. Axon, however,
combines fixed ALPRs with mobile vehicle
scanners, body-worn cameras, drone
feeds, and facial recognition capable
software. Instead of just tracking where
your car was parked at 2:00 p.m., an
integrated Axon system can correlate
your car, your physical walk to a front
door, and the officer's interaction into
a single searchable file. Second is how
neither system addresses the core civil
liberties issue, data collection on
innocent people. Every day, millions of
drivers who are not suspected of any
crime have their precise locations
time-stamped and travel directions
scanned and stored. Switching from Flock
to Axon doesn't magically create a
warrant requirement to search those
location records. Third is what they're
calling monopoly vendor lock-in. By
bundling tasers, body cameras, cloud
storage, drones, and license plate
readers into a single vendor contract,
cities become completely dependent on
one company for their entire public
safety technology stack. Once a city or
county is locked into Axon's cloud,
opting out or enforcing local privacy
oversight becomes infinitely harder.
However, I think it's important to
remember the fact that cities are
canceling their Flock contracts in the
first place proves that public pressure
works, and the key thing is making sure
local leaders don't just hand the
contract to another surveillance vendor.
If you care about your neighborhood's
privacy, here are four things you can
realistically do. First, target the
contract, not just the technology. Mass
surveillance happens at the municipal
level. Tools like ALPR.watch track
upcoming city council agendas related to
surveillance contracts.
When a contract renewal or vendor swap
comes up, show up to public comment,
voice your opinions on whether you want
these types of systems in your
community, and if your city is moving
forward, ask city council members to
answer two crucial questions. What is
the strict deletion timeline for data on
drivers not suspected of any crimes?
Next, is this location data being shared
with outside or federal agencies? The
next thing you can do is advocate for
community control over police
surveillance ordinances in your city.
This is a strict local law that requires
police departments to get explicit city
council approval before acquiring any
surveillance technology. It doesn't
matter whether it's Flock, Axon, or
another company. They often have
mandates such as a strict 30-day data
purge limit and warrant requirements for
location searches.
Third, intervene at the HOA and business
level. A huge portion of ALPR cameras
are purchased by HOAs, private property
managers, and retail stores. If your HOA
board is considering an ALPR system,
vote against it and raise the liability,
cybersecurity, and subscription cost as
a concern.
If a system is already installed, ask
the HOA board to turn off third-party
police sharing or use resident exclusion
list to opt your vehicle out. Last, use
public records request. In almost every
state, ALPR audit logs, data sharing
agreement, and vendor contracts are
public records. Organizations like the
ACLU and EFF offer templates that you
can use to submit Freedom of Information
Act requests, FOIAs,
or state public records request to your
local police department.
Exposing unauthorized data sharing or
policy violations can help push city
councils to reconsider the contracts
they have with these types of companies.
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thoughts in the comments below. Thank
you.