Chandler just kissed Flock goodbye

Our Take

Credit to The Copper Courier for digging into this one: a city audit in Chandler apparently found something in Flock's system that nobody could fully explain, and instead of shrugging it off, the city actually walked away from the contract. That's rare. Most municipalities sign these deals, get a few vague assurances about 'data security' and 'retention policies,' and never ask a follow-up question again.

We don't know the exact technical details of the anomaly, and we won't pretend to — but the fact that an audit found anything unexplainable at all is the real story. These systems are marketed as plug-and-play public safety tools, but they're black boxes running on taxpayer-funded infrastructure, scanning every plate that passes by, often with little independent oversight of how the data moves, who touches it, or where it ends up. When a city can't get a straight answer about its own surveillance network, that's not a technical glitch — that's a transparency failure.

Chandler pulling the plug should be a wake-up call for every other city council that approved Flock without asking hard questions first. If you want to see whether ALPR cameras are already watching your street, check our map, and if you want to push your own local government toward the kind of scrutiny Chandler finally applied, our take-action guide is a good place to start.