Cities debating use of controversial Flock cameras
The short version: CBS Chicago spotlights a growing trend: communities weighing whether Flock's ALPR network is worth the privacy trade-off, and some are walking away.
Our Take
CBS Chicago's report captures something we've been tracking for months: the Flock honeymoon is ending in city after city. When a surveillance vendor's pitch is 'trust us with a permanent record of everywhere your car goes,' it was only a matter of time before elected officials started asking harder questions about cost, accuracy, and who actually gets access to that data.
What's notable here isn't just that some towns are debating Flock — it's that the debate is happening in public, on camera, in council chambers. That's a shift from a few years ago when these contracts got rubber-stamped with little scrutiny. Credit to CBS Chicago for putting a local lens on a national pattern: once residents learn their plates are being logged and stored regardless of suspicion, the political calculus changes fast.
If your city hasn't had this conversation yet, it's worth starting one. Check our map to see what's already deployed near you, and use our take-action resources to push your local officials toward the same scrutiny these communities are finally giving Flock.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS Chicago, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.