Cities Are Now Canceling Flock, But There's a Catch

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. Please subscribe and let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Thank you.