LIVE: Hearing Regarding Flock Usage in Columbus, Ohio
The short version: A live Columbus, Ohio hearing on Flock Safety ALPRs, filmed by BG On The Scene, shows local government finally being forced to answer for its camera network.
Our Take
Credit to BG On The Scene for getting a camera into the room while Columbus officials actually had to field questions about their Flock Safety deployment. These hearings rarely make the evening news, but they're where the real decisions about surveillance infrastructure get made — budget lines, data-sharing agreements, retention policies — far from the public's attention. The fact that residents showed up and pushed for a public airing is the whole ballgame.
This is the pattern we track at DeFlock: a city quietly rolls out a network of license plate readers, then faces scattered pushback only after the cameras are already bolted to poles and feeding data to a company server. By the time a hearing happens, officials can point to 'existing infrastructure' as if it were inevitable rather than a choice made with little public input. Columbus residents pressing for accountability now is exactly the kind of friction that should happen before contracts get signed, not after.
If you want to see whether your own neighborhood has been wired up the same way, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action page has concrete steps for showing up at your own version of this hearing.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of BG On The Scene, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.