New Anoka County agreement for flock cameras
The short version: KARE 11 reports Anoka County residents pushing back on a new Flock ALPR pilot, and the county's answers on oversight sound thin.
Our Take
KARE 11's segment on Anoka County's new Flock pilot program is a familiar script: a local government rolls out automated license plate readers, a handful of residents ask pointed questions about data retention, sharing, and oversight, and the officials on camera offer reassurances that don't quite hold up under scrutiny. "Pilot program" language is doing a lot of work here — it's the kind of framing that lets agencies install permanent infrastructure while promising nothing is set in stone yet.
What matters is what happens after the cameras go up. Flock's own retention defaults, its network of law enforcement data-sharing agreements, and the near-total absence of independent auditing mean that once a county signs on, residents have almost no visibility into who's actually querying their movements or why. Credit to KARE 11 for giving Anoka County residents' concerns airtime instead of just running the vendor's press release as news — that's the kind of local accountability journalism this beat needs more of.
If you're in Anoka County or anywhere else watching a Flock rollout creep toward your neighborhood, check our camera map to see what's already been deployed nearby, and hit take action for concrete steps to push back before the contract is a done deal.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KARE 11, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.