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Texas Governor Greg Abbott has frozen further state spending on Flock's AI-powered license plate cameras, a decision made shortly before a Texas Tribune investigation exposed that the state had already spent over $30 million on the technology. That funding came largely from a $1 fee added to insurance policies, ostensibly to combat catalytic converter theft.
Anti-surveillance group Secure Justice reports that 214 cities and counties have dropped Flock Safety's license-plate camera contracts since 2021, with 90 cancellations in August alone—a fourfold jump from July. Communities from Lansing, Michigan to Pflugerville, Texas cited cost, data-sharing practices, network reach, and cases of police misuse as reasons for ending their deals. Flock says new city partnerships still outnumber cancellations roughly 10 to 1 this year.
A Mother Jones investigation found 19 police agencies in ten states spent nearly $1 million of opioid settlement money on automatic license plate readers from companies like Flock and Axon. The funds were originally allocated to help communities devastated by the opioid crisis, but state distribution agencies instead routed portions to police departments, which pitched surveillance tech as a crime-fighting tool.
A $1 auto insurance fee approved by Texas lawmakers in 2023 to fight catalytic converter theft has instead financed a massive expansion of Flock license-plate cameras across the state. The Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority, chaired by Laredo Police Chief Miguel Rodriguez, has issued 95 grants and partnered with the Department of Public Safety to fund roughly 3,200 cameras, with hundreds more planned along tollways. Following inquiries from The Texas Tribune, Gov. Greg Abbott's office announced it is pausing state funding for local Flock camera grants.
A YouGov survey of 20,000 Americans shared with The Washington Post found 46% now oppose police license plate reading cameras made by Flock Safety, versus 38% in favor—a reversal from last year's majority support. Most respondents also said the cameras don't make them feel safer. The findings come amid mounting controversy over Flock, including a doxxing campaign against its CEO Garrett Langley and an Ohio grand jury's refusal to indict a man who destroyed one of the company's cameras.
Leading AI companies say a wave of AI-automated cyberattacks could hit within months, escalating a range of security stories including misuse of Flock Safety license-plate cameras, an OpenAI-linked AI agent incident on Hugging Face, and a federal takedown of tools tied to a Chinese hacking group known as QTFY.
Secure Justice, an Oakland-based anti-surveillance group, reports that 214 cities and counties have dropped Flock Safety license-plate camera contracts since 2021, with 90 cancellations in August 2026 alone—four times July's total. Communities citing surveillance overreach, data-sharing concerns, cost, and police misuse are ending deals at roughly three per day over the past month. Flock disputes the significance, saying new partnerships have outpaced cancellations 10 to 1 in 2026.
A Wall Street Journal report on the rapid expansion of Flock Safety's AI-powered license-plate reading cameras drew sharp reactions from readers, who split between viewing the systems as vital crime-fighting tools and warning they enable mass surveillance. The debate centers on how widely law enforcement and communities are adopting the technology and what oversight, if any, governs its use.
A YouGov poll of 20,000 Americans shared with The Washington Post found 46% oppose license plate reader surveillance in their communities, versus 38% in favor, flipping last year's majority support. Flock, which operates over 120,000 such cameras nationwide, has faced backlash after reports of police misuse, prompting several communities to drop or reject contracts.
Across the US, people who disable or destroy Flock automatic license plate reader towers are being celebrated online rather than condemned, with social media posts backing vandals over police who install the surveillance cameras. In one case an Ohio grand jury declined to indict a man caught on video destroying a Flock camera, and public backlash has pushed some Wisconsin towns to drop their Flock contracts after a neighboring city ended its own.
The Austin suburb's city council voted unanimously on August 25 to terminate its agreement with Flock Safety, cutting off access to its automated license plate reader system. City staff had already begun covering the 28 cameras installed around town earlier that day, ending a relationship with the vendor that dated back to 2020.
Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based startup that sells AI-powered license-plate-reading cameras to police departments, cities, and businesses, has rapidly grown from a niche security vendor into a widely recognized name. That visibility has come largely through controversy, as the company's surveillance technology has drawn public scrutiny and criticism rather than praise.