Washington Terrace pulls back from Flock camera agreement amid privacy concerns

Our Take

Credit to KUTV 2 News Salt Lake City for catching this one early. Washington Terrace was on track to sign on with Flock Safety, another small city quietly adding itself to the national grid of license plate readers, until residents actually showed up and said no. That's the part that matters here: this wasn't a council quietly tabling a line item, it was pushback from the public forcing officials to reconsider a surveillance contract before the cameras ever went up.

These stories matter because the usual pattern is the opposite. A police department signs a deal, cameras get bolted to poles, and only later do residents learn their daily movements are being logged, stored, and shared with other agencies through Flock's network, often with little local oversight on who gets access or how long data sits in the system. Washington Terrace flipping the script, pausing before deployment rather than apologizing after, is a rare and useful data point for every other town currently being pitched the same pitch.

It's also a reminder that these fights are won locally, one city council meeting at a time. If you want to see whether Flock or similar ALPR systems are already running near you, check our camera map, and if your town is considering a contract, our take-action page has tools to help you organize before the vote, not after the cameras are already watching.