Key facts
- Monroe, Ohio; Newburgh, New York; Richmond, Virginia; Hopkinton and New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Lansing, Michigan moved to end Flock contracts.
- Police in East Bridgewater and Grafton, Massachusetts announced plans to stop using Flock cameras.
- Flock said it does not sell data and does not have a contract with ICE.
- Florida barred license plate readers from state highways, and Texas paused state funding for Flock.
- Cleveland, Ohio, extended its Flock contract but restricted immigration-related searches and limited database access to its police.
- Flock said agencies now need a case code before searching the database.
At least 10 local governments and police departments have moved since summer 2026 to curb, restrict or end their use of Flock Safety technology, TechCrunch reported on November 6, 2026, as concerns about mass surveillance and data privacy grow.
In the past three months, Monroe, Ohio; Newburgh, New York; Richmond, Virginia; Hopkinton, Massachusetts; New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Lansing, Michigan have all moved to end their contracts with Flock. Police in East Bridgewater and Grafton, Massachusetts also announced plans to stop using Flock cameras. In the week before November 6, residents of League City, Texas, voted against their police department's continued use of Flock's license plate readers, and the cameras are set to be removed.
Flock, founded in 2017, sells surveillance software including license plate readers, drones and microphone-based edge-computing devices that pick up gunshots and other sounds. More than 100,000 Flock cameras are in use nationwide, according to the report. The concerns cited range from privacy to how data is shared and with whom, to procurement.
In Asheville, North Carolina, police lost access to Flock after the city voted to terminate its contract in August, and the El Paso County Sheriff's Office in Colorado announced in September that it would stop using Flock cameras. Sheriff Joseph Roybal said in a press release that discontinuing the use of Flock was the right decision for the county. "We have the tools, training, and experience to locate and apprehend criminals without relying on Flock cameras," he said.
At the state level, Florida barred license plate readers from state highways and Texas paused state funding for Flock, the report said. In August, an officer in Brentwood, Missouri was accused of using Flock cameras to stalk his ex-wife during their divorce, and in September an officer from East Texas was sentenced to prison for using Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her family.
Ithaca, New York, passed a resolution in March to terminate its contract with the Flock Group, citing what it said were proven instances of federal agents using Flock infrastructure without authorization from the contracting locality. Flock told TechCrunch that its technology helps police solve serious crimes, that every customer owns its data and controls sharing, that it does not sell data and that it does not have a contract with ICE.