Contrato Flock: licencia perpetua y metadatos expuestos

Our Take

Creator Horacio Giusto turns his lens on the fine print that most city councils never bother to read: the actual contract language governing Flock Safety's ALPR deployments. Terms like "perpetual license" aren't just legal boilerplate — they can determine whether a police department, or Flock itself, retains rights to plate-read data and metadata long after a camera is unplugged or a contract expires. That's the kind of detail that should get flagged before a city signs, not after residents start asking where their travel history ended up.

Metadata exposure is the quieter half of the ALPR story. Everyone focuses on the plate number, but timestamps, GPS coordinates, camera IDs, and cross-agency sharing logs paint an even more precise picture of daily movement — and that data doesn't always stay put. When contracts allow broad, indefinite use or vague sharing arrangements, the surveillance footprint outlives the original justification for installing the camera in the first place.

We appreciate Giusto pulling contract language into public view, because these agreements are usually buried in council packets nobody scrutinizes until it's too late. If you want to see where these cameras are already watching in your area, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back on a local contract, our take-action page has starting points.