Tort claims filed against two Canyon County cities over Flock camera agreements

Our Take

Credit to KTVB for covering this one, because it cuts right to the heart of how these deals actually get structured. Cities love to say they're just "deploying a public safety tool," but the fine print in Flock's contracts often hands a private, for-profit company broad rights to the data your car generates every time you drive past one of their cameras. If an Idaho group is right that this amounts to unlawful commercial use under state law, that's not a technicality — it's the whole business model getting exposed in public.

This is exactly the kind of fight we want to see more of. Most city councils approve these contracts in twenty minutes with zero scrutiny of the data-sharing terms, the retention windows, or who else gets query access down the line. A tort claim forces the question that should've been asked before a single camera went up: who actually owns and profits from a permanent record of everyone's movements in town? Idaho isn't alone in having statutes that arguably weren't written with mass ALPR surveillance networks in mind, and local challenges like this one are often the only check that exists until legislatures catch up.

If you want to see whether Flock or similar systems are already watching your own streets, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action guide walks through how to raise exactly these kinds of contract questions with your own city council.