Union Township holds town hall on Automated License Plate Readers
The short version: A Union Township town hall shows what real ALPR accountability could look like — if residents push past the sales pitch and demand hard answers.
Our Take
Credit to WCPO 9 for covering something most local news skips: an actual public forum where residents got to question elected officials, police, and a Flock Safety rep face to face. That kind of meeting is rare, and it's exactly the model every township installing these cameras should follow — not a quiet vote buried in a council agenda, but a room full of taxpayers asking who sees their travel history and for how long.
The catch is that Flock sending its own representative to a town hall means the company gets to frame the narrative on its own product. These pitches tend to emphasize solved crimes and stay vague on retention windows, data-sharing agreements with other agencies, and what happens when the system misreads a plate. Residents deserve written policy, not just reassuring talking points from the vendor that profits off every camera installed.
If you're in a community facing a similar vote, don't wait for a town hall to be scheduled for you — demand one, and ask for the actual interlocal agreements and audit logs, not a sales deck. Check our map to see if Flock is already running in your area, and visit take action for steps to push back before the cameras go up.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WCPO 9, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.