More Than 90 Cities Dropped Flock in August. Many Were Police.

Our Take

Credit to Verified Privacy VPN for pulling together the August numbers: more than ninety cities cutting ties with Flock in a single month, roughly three a day, and quadruple July's pace. The data comes from Secure Justice, the Oakland group that's been quietly logging every cancellation since 2021 and is now tracking 214 cities and counties nationwide. That a spreadsheet like this exists at all, and that it's updating faster than its maintainers can keep up with, tells you the tide is turning.

What jumps out isn't just the volume, it's who's walking away. Police departments are supposed to be Flock's best customers, not its defectors. The Bellingham, Massachusetts chief putting his reasoning in writing, that Flock tried to alter contract terms and data access mid-agreement, and that his own department stumbled onto an undisclosed feature during an active investigation, is the kind of admission that should worry every city council still rubber-stamping these contracts. If the cops running the cameras don't trust the vendor, why should the public?

This is exactly the pattern we've been documenting: quiet installs, vague vendor promises, then a slow-motion reckoning once officials actually read the fine print or get burned by it. Check our map to see what's near you, and if your town is still under contract, our take-action page has what you need to start asking the hard questions before you become the next case study.