City Council hears mixed views on Flock cameras, data access in hearing

Our Take

Credit to WSYX ABC 6 for covering this hearing, because public hearings are exactly where the Flock story should be playing out — not in a quiet city budget line item, but in a room where council members have to look constituents in the eye and answer who gets to see footage of their comings and goings. Columbus went from 32 cameras on a 2022 grant to 76 by 2024, and that kind of quiet doubling is the pattern we see city after city: grant money buys the first batch, nobody asks hard questions, and by the time a hearing finally happens the network is already woven into daily policing.

The real fight here isn't whether ALPRs can help solve a specific case — it's data access. Who can query the system, for what reason, how long is it logged, and is there any audit that actually catches misuse before it becomes a headline? "Mixed views" in a council chamber usually means the public is asking for guardrails and the department is asking for trust. Columbus residents deserve more than trust; they deserve a published audit policy, retention limits, and a hard line against sharing plate data with federal immigration enforcement or out-of-state agencies chasing abortion and gender-affirming care cases.

If you're in Columbus or anywhere else wondering how many of these cameras are already watching your street, check our camera map — and if your city hasn't held a hearing like this yet, don't wait for a grant renewal to force the conversation. Our take-action page has the tools to get it on your council's agenda first.