Ogden is Utah’s biggest spender on Flock surveillance cameras.
The short version: KUER's Macy Lipkin digs into why Ogden, Utah outspends every other city in the state on Flock ALPR cameras, and residents want answers.
Our Take
Credit to KUER 90.1 and reporter Macy Lipkin for doing what more local newsrooms should be doing: pulling the actual transparency numbers instead of repeating a police department's press release. Ogden being Utah's top Flock spender isn't just a budget curiosity — it's a signal that a mid-size city has quietly built one of the densest license plate surveillance networks in the state, largely without the kind of public debate that kind of spending should trigger.
What jumps out is that it took residents asking questions to get basic answers about a system that logs their movements every time they drive past a camera. That's the pattern nationwide: Flock deals get signed as routine procurement items, framed as "crime-fighting tools," and the actual scope — how many cameras, how much data, how long it's kept, who else can access it — only comes out after someone digs. Ogden taxpayers deserve to know that before the invoices pile up, not after.
If you're in Utah or anywhere else, check our camera map to see what's already watching your neighborhood, and use our take-action guide to push your city council for the same transparency Ogden residents had to fight for.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KUER 90.1, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.