No more flock cameras in Robinson, TX

Our Take

Score one for the small towns. Robinson, Texas didn't just quietly let its Flock Safety contract lapse — the city council voted unanimously to walk away, according to KCEN News. That's not a budget footnote, that's a statement. When every single council member agrees a surveillance camera network isn't worth renewing, it usually means residents made noise, asked hard questions, and local leaders actually listened instead of rubber-stamping another year of blanket license plate tracking.

We don't have the full transcript of the council debate, and KCEN's report is light on the specific reasons, but the pattern is familiar: towns sign up for Flock promising it'll only nab stolen cars and wanted felons, then residents discover the system quietly logs every passing vehicle, retains the data, and often shares it across a sprawling network of other agencies with little oversight. Once that reality sinks in, "renew the contract" stops sounding like a formality.

Robinson joins a growing list of communities rethinking whether constant vehicle tracking is a fair trade for marginal crime-fighting gains. If you want to see whether your own city is running these cameras, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for your council to stumble into this decision on its own, our take-action page has the tools to get the conversation started now. Credit to KCEN News for getting this vote on record — it's exactly the kind of local accountability reporting that keeps these systems in check.