Multiple US municipalities voted Tuesday on ballot measures targeting automatic license plate readers like those made by Flock Safety. York County, Maine passed a measure 72-28 to remove existing ALPRs and require voter approval for future installations, while League City, Texas voters rejected continued police use of the cameras by a 54-46 margin. Pflugerville, Texas also passed ordinances requiring public approval before deploying facial recognition or other AI surveillance tools.
futurism.com
· 2026-11-06
Since this summer, more than ten U.S. municipalities and police departments—including Asheville, Richmond, Lansing, Monroe, and League City—have voted to end, restrict, or phase out contracts with Flock Safety's license plate readers and other surveillance tools. The moves follow local pushback over privacy, data-sharing practices, and procurement concerns, with Flock cameras currently deployed in over 100,000 locations nationwide.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-11-06
The 2026 midterm elections, which will shape the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency, are expected to center largely on affordability but also include several technology-related topics on voters' minds. These include rising energy costs tied to data centers, AI safety, expansion of surveillance tools like Flock, and a California ballot measure to tax billionaire wealth that has prompted heavy tech industry spending and new stock structures.
theverge.com
· 2026-11-03
Richmond, Virginia police used vague Flock camera descriptions—make, model, color, approximate year—to identify Rosalyn Crump's 2012 Hyundai Elantra as connected to a shooting, despite lacking a license plate match. Officers impounded her car over her objections and despite body cam footage showing an officer doubting the match, and later identified a different vehicle as the actual suspect car. Crump wasn't told her car was released for four days, and only learned upon pickup that Seibert's Towing had torn off the front bumper during impoundment.
yro.slashdot.org
· 2026-11-02
Emory University has removed Flock Safety's automated license-plate-reading cameras from campus, with a spokesperson saying the move keeps safety infrastructure under the institution's own control. The decision follows a broader student-led 'de-flock' movement questioning the use of Flock's surveillance technology at colleges.
yro.slashdot.org
· 2026-11-01
Plymouth, Minnesota's city council voted in September to terminate its Flock Safety contract, but after a month without response from the company, Police Chief Eric Fadden had staff physically disconnect the cameras' power cords. In nearby Dayton, Minnesota, Flock acknowledged a cancellation request but then reconnected two cameras without authorization despite local police explicitly telling the company not to complete the work order.
theverge.com
· 2026-11-01
Plymouth City Council voted on September 22 to end its contract with license-plate camera maker Flock, and the city notified Flock the next day, followed by a formal cancellation letter. When Flock did not respond for more than a week, Police Chief Eric Fadden ordered staff to unplug the cameras' power cords to stop them from recording.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-11-01
The city of Dayton, Minnesota says Flock Safety installed and activated two license-plate cameras despite being told on September 18 that the program was on hold and no work orders should proceed. City staff later found a second reinstalled camera and have asked Flock to remove both. Separately, police departments in Crystal and St. Paul, Minnesota removed Flock cameras themselves after council votes ended their contracts, and are still waiting for Flock to retrieve the equipment.
yro.slashdot.org
· 2026-10-31
Dayton, Minnesota's government says Flock reinstalled two surveillance cameras and put them back into service despite being told a day earlier that the city's work order program was on hold. Residents noticed the cameras and alerted police, who removed them; Dayton had already voted in August to cancel its Flock contract, and city officials say the company took five days to acknowledge the cancellation and said removal would take 60 days.
techspot.com
· 2026-10-30
Dayton's city council voted on August 25 to suspend Flock's license plate reader program amid privacy concerns, and the city told Flock on September 18 that no work orders should proceed. Despite this, Flock submitted a work order on September 17 and later reinstalled two cameras without city authorization, prompting Dayton's local government to post on Facebook on September 29 confirming residents had spotted the cameras and that police were ordered to remove them.
tomshardware.com
· 2026-10-29
St. Lucie County, Florida found 12 unpermitted Flock Safety license-plate cameras during a countywide removal effort; five were later claimed by the Port St. Lucie and Fort Pierce police departments, while seven remain unclaimed and unexplained. County spokesperson Erick Gill said the county's priority was removal, not identifying owners, giving operators 30 days to take cameras down without facing questions.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-10-28
The ACLU has documented cases where police stopped drivers based only on AI-powered automatic license plate reader (ALPR) data flagging their travel as 'suspicious,' with no other cause. In one 2025 case, a woman driving through multiple states to Florida was pulled over by a self-identified FBI agent after her out-of-state plate and travel pattern looked unusual in the ALPR database. These nationwide camera networks, often built by Flock, let authorities search vehicle movements without a warrant.
techspot.com
· 2026-10-28
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