City council in Ohio unanimously votes to end contract with Flock
The short version: Monroe, Ohio's city council unanimously voted to kill its Flock Safety contract and shut down all 23 ALPR cameras, as reported by Local 12.
Our Take
Credit to Local 12 for getting this one on camera: a unanimous city council vote is rare in any context, let alone one that ends a surveillance contract outright. When every single member of a council — not just the usual privacy hawks — agrees to pull the plug on 23 license plate readers, that's a signal worth paying attention to. It usually means the cost-benefit case Flock sales reps pitch at budget time didn't hold up once residents and elected officials actually dug into what these systems log, store, and share.
Monroe joins a growing list of towns where the initial "just for stolen cars and Amber Alerts" sales pitch collided with the reality of blanket vehicle tracking, vague data-sharing agreements, and recurring subscription fees for hardware that quietly builds a location history on every driver who passes through. Unanimous votes like this one don't happen in a vacuum — they happen because someone showed up to meetings, asked for the data, and made the case publicly.
If you're in a town still debating whether to renew or sign a Flock contract, this is the playbook: check our camera map to see what's already been deployed near you, then use our take-action resources to push your own council toward the same kind of scrutiny Monroe just delivered.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of LOCAL 12, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.