City of Monroe votes to remove Flock cameras
The short version: Monroe, Ohio's city council voted to kill its Flock contract and power down all 24 license plate readers, as reported by FOX19 NOW Cincinnati.
Our Take
Add Monroe to the growing list of towns that looked at a 24-camera Flock network and decided the math didn't work — not on cost, not on privacy, not on promised crime results. FOX19 NOW's report on the council vote is a reminder that these contracts aren't permanent fixtures just because a vendor says they're 'the future of public safety.' A council can reverse course, and sometimes does.
What makes these reversals matter is the pattern they reveal: once elected officials actually dig into how ALPR data is stored, shared, and queried — often by agencies far outside the city that approved the cameras — the enthusiasm cools fast. Twenty-four readers blanketing a small city is a lot of plate-by-plate tracking for a problem that's supposed to be about solving specific crimes, not logging everyone's daily movements.
If you want to see whether your own town is wired up like Monroe was, check our camera map, and if you'd rather your city council hear from residents before a contract renewal than after, our take-action page has the tools to make that happen.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of FOX19 NOW | Cincinnati, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.