Florida ends permits for Flock cameras on state roads, halting future approvals

Our Take

This is the kind of news we live for. As KTXS News reports, FDOT Assistant Secretary Will Watts didn't mince words: existing license-plate reader permits on state roads are revoked immediately, and agencies have 30 days to self-remove or the state will do it for them. No new permits, period. That's not a slap on the wrist — that's a state transportation agency admitting it never should have let a private surveillance vendor bolt cameras onto public infrastructure in the first place.

What makes this significant isn't just the scale, though pulling cameras off state roads statewide is a big deal. It's the precedent. Flock's entire business model depends on local agencies signing contracts one jurisdiction at a time, with little pushback, and with the assumption that once cameras go up, they stay up. Florida just proved that assumption wrong at the state level. If an agency that approved these permits can reverse course this decisively, it undercuts the 'it's already here, nothing we can do' fatalism that Flock relies on in every city council meeting.

We don't know yet how local police departments will respond, or whether Flock cameras will simply migrate to city and county roads outside FDOT's jurisdiction — that's the fight that's coming next. Check our camera map to see what's actually deployed near you, and if you want to push your own city or county toward a similar reversal, our take-action page has the tools to get started. Credit to KTXS News for breaking this one down.