Open Records Requests Reveal Flock's Plans

Our Take

Business Reform's Jason Hunyar keeps doing the unglamorous work that actually moves this story forward: filing records requests and reading what comes back. This round is worth your attention because it isn't speculation — it's paper trail. If 911 call center data and records management system (RMS) data really are becoming part of Flock's ecosystem, that's a quiet expansion of what a "license plate reader network" even means, stretching well past the original pitch of "we're just scanning plates for stolen cars."

The part that should bother every city council member who approved a Flock contract is the software update angle. Systems get sold to the public at one capability level, then updated later to do more — without another vote, another hearing, or another chance for residents to say no. Add in alleged insurance-related searches and email trails between Flock executives and public officials, and you've got the pattern we keep seeing nationwide: mission creep dressed up as a routine software patch, plus a company that talks to insiders a lot more than it talks to the people being surveilled.

Then there's AI making automated calls with no real appeal process — which means a wrong hit on a plate can follow someone with almost no recourse. That's not a hypothetical, it's a design flaw. Check our map to see what's already deployed near you, and use our take-action page to push your local officials for the kind of records requests that produced this reporting in the first place.