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

Our Take

Credit to KRCG 13 for surfacing this memo, because it's a genuinely big deal: a state transportation agency just told every police department and private vendor running license plate readers on its right-of-way that the party's over. Assistant Secretary Will Watts didn't mince words — permits revoked immediately, 30 days to self-remove, no new approvals coming. That's not a city council tabling a contract or a sheriff promising "policy safeguards." That's an entire state's highway infrastructure getting closed off to mass plate tracking in one memo.

What makes this notable is the precedent. Flock's entire pitch to agencies has always leaned on ubiquity — the more roads, the more cameras, the more complete the surveillance net. A DOT saying "not on our poles, not on our right-of-way" is a structural chokepoint other states should be looking at closely. It doesn't dismantle every camera already bolted to a private pole or a local road, but it closes off a huge chunk of the highway system to a company that's been expanding largely unchecked for years.

We'll be watching to see whether other state DOTs follow Florida's lead, and whether local agencies quietly route around this by moving cameras onto city streets instead of state highways. Check our camera map to see what's actually deployed near you, and if you want to push your own state toward a similar reckoning, our take-action page has a starting point.