Eastpointe City Council votes to cancel Flock contract

Our Take

Credit to CBS Detroit for catching this one: Eastpointe's city council didn't just quietly renew a Flock Safety contract, they pulled the plug on it after officials say two police department employees misused the camera network. That's the nightmare scenario privacy advocates have warned about for years — not some hypothetical hacker, but insiders with legitimate access deciding to use mass surveillance infrastructure for their own purposes. Once that data exists and is searchable, misuse isn't a possibility, it's a matter of time.

What makes Eastpointe notable is that the council actually acted on it. Plenty of departments absorb an ALPR abuse scandal, issue a statement about "retraining," and keep the cameras running. Canceling the contract outright is a rare acknowledgment that the problem isn't a few bad actors, it's the system itself: a always-on, searchable log of where every driver has been, sitting there waiting to be queried for reasons that have nothing to do with public safety.

This is exactly why we track where these cameras go up in the first place. If you want to see whether Flock has a foothold near you, check our map, and if you'd rather your city council have this fight before the misuse happens instead of after, our take-action page has the tools to push back now.