Fridley residents push back on Flock camera contract
The short version: KARE 11 captures Fridley residents grilling city officials over a Flock Safety contract, another sign that ALPR pushback is spreading beyond the usual coastal hotspots.
Our Take
Credit to KARE 11 for putting a camera in the room where this fight actually happens: a city council chamber, not a press release. Fridley residents showing up heated about a Flock Safety contract is exactly the kind of local friction that keeps these systems from just quietly multiplying block by block. Most of these contracts get approved on a slow Tuesday night with almost no public awareness until the cameras are already bolted to poles.
What makes Flock different from a normal traffic camera is the network effect. One city's contract doesn't just watch that city — it feeds a searchable, cross-jurisdictional database of everyone's comings and goings, shared with police departments and federal agencies far outside the town that voted to install it. Residents pushing back on the company, not just the hardware, are asking the right question: who actually controls this data once it leaves Fridley, and what stops it from being used against the very people who paid for it.
If you want to see how far this has already spread, check our camera map to find what's near you, and if Fridley's fight sounds familiar, our take-action page has the tools to bring the same scrutiny to your own council meeting.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KARE 11, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.