At least 10 US local governments and police departments have moved since summer to curb, restrict or end their use of Flock Safety surveillance cameras, as concerns about mass surveillance and data privacy grow. TechCrunch reported the count on 5 November 2026.

Since summer, Monroe, Ohio; Newburgh, New York; Richmond, Virginia; Hopkinton and New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Lansing, Michigan, have all moved to end their Flock contracts, and police in East Bridgewater and Grafton, Massachusetts, have announced plans to stop. In League City, Texas, residents voted this week against continued police use of the readers, and the cameras are now set to be removed.

In York, Maine, voters banned automatic licence plate readers on 3 November by 5,386 votes to 2,043. York police had already taken the cameras offline in September, and the ban means a referendum vote would be needed to bring them back.

Privacy, misuse and data sharing

The concerns range from privacy to how the data is shared. Ithaca, New York, ended its contract in March after reviewing reports that federal agents, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had used Flock data without local authorisation. Misuse is also a factor: in August, a Brentwood, Missouri, officer was accused of using Flock cameras to stalk his former wife, and in September an East Texas officer was jailed for using Flock to stalk his former girlfriend and her family.

Florida barred licence plate readers from state highways this summer, while Texas paused state funding for Flock. Flock told TechCrunch its technology helps police solve serious crimes and find missing people, that every customer owns its data, that it does not sell data, and that it has no contract with ICE. Over 100,000 Flock cameras are in use across the US.