Audit of Flock camera system leads to discontinuation

Our Take

Credit to FOX 2 St. Louis for covering this one: a county police department didn't just rubber-stamp its Flock Safety contract, it actually audited the system — and what it found was apparently bad enough to shut the whole thing down. That's a rare outcome. Most agencies install these cameras, flip them on, and never look back. This department looked back and didn't like what it saw.

We don't know every detail of the audit, but the fact that a lack of basic guardrails was enough to kill the program tells you something important: these systems are routinely deployed without the policies, oversight, or accountability structures that should come standard. That's not an anomaly, it's the pattern. Communities across the country are being told to trust a black-box surveillance network with little more than a sales pitch and a vague promise that it'll help solve crimes. When someone actually checks the math, the math often doesn't hold up.

This is exactly why local scrutiny matters. If your town has Flock cameras — or is being pitched on them — don't wait for a scandal to force an audit. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and hit up our take-action page for tools to push your own local officials toward the same kind of hard look that just ended this program.