More Minnesota police agencies use Flock cameras to fight crime. But who has the keys to the data?

Our Take

Credit to KSTP 5's Ryan Raiche for asking the question every city council should have asked before signing a Flock contract: who actually holds the keys to this data? It's telling that another Minnesota department is only now scrambling to add guardrails after the fact. That's the pattern we see nationwide — agencies flip the cameras on first and figure out oversight later, if ever.

"Fighting crime" is the pitch, but the real story is always about access and audit trails. Once plate data lives in a shared network, the question stops being "did this camera solve a crime" and becomes "who else can query it, for what reason, and who's checking." Multi-agency sharing means a records request in one city can surface a car that never left its own quiet suburb, logged and searchable by departments it never consented to. That's the trade Minnesota residents are being asked to make, mostly without a vote.

If you live in the Twin Cities or anywhere else, check our camera map to see what's already watching your street, and use our take-action guide to push your local council for real transparency before the next contract renewal, not after.