WATCH: Elk Grove resident warns the city it's losing control over Flock
The short version: A resident's warning at Elk Grove's council meeting spotlights a pattern we see everywhere: cities adopt Flock ALPRs first and figure out oversight later, if at all.
Our Take
Courier California's clip from Elk Grove's Sept. 9 city council meeting captures something we hear from residents across the country: once Flock Safety's cameras go up, the people who approved them often lose track of how the system actually gets used. A resident standing up to say the city is "losing control" of its own surveillance network isn't a fringe complaint — it's the predictable result of handing a private company a growing database of everyone's movements with little built-in accountability.
The pattern is familiar. Councils approve a "public safety tool" with vague promises about stolen cars and Amber Alerts, then the audit logs, data-sharing agreements, and search history start raising harder questions nobody wants to answer in a five-minute public comment window. Once a city is plugged into Flock's national network, its local policy choices matter less than the thousands of other agencies quietly querying the same plates. That's how "our cameras, our rules" quietly becomes "everyone's cameras, nobody's rules."
Credit to Courier California for putting this exchange on record — it's exactly the kind of local accountability moment that gets buried if nobody's filming. If you want to see whether Elk Grove or your own city is on the grid, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back at your next council meeting, our take-action page has the tools to help.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Courier California, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.