Flock Is Getting Cancelled. What's Next Is Worse.

Our Take

Credit to Addie LaMarr for laying out what a lot of us watching this space already suspected: cancelling Flock isn't the same as cancelling ALPR surveillance. Her reporting on roughly 100 towns that rejected or shut down Flock deals, only to have cameras reappear months later under a different company's contract, is the real story here. The vendor name changes. The oversight gaps don't.

The abuse numbers she cites aren't abstract either. More than 50 officers accused or convicted of misusing plate reader data, often to stalk exes, and San Francisco's own audit turning up 299 improper searches in about a year, run for outside agencies with no public authorization, are exactly the kind of receipts that should end these contracts for good. Instead, procurement offices seem to be treating public backlash as a branding problem to route around rather than a policy signal to listen to.

This is why we keep saying the fight isn't over when one company's logo comes off the pole. If your town killed a Flock contract, check whether the hardware actually came down or just got a new sticker — start with our camera map — and if you want to push back before the next vendor slides in under a no-bid deal, our take-action resources walk through how to get it in front of your council before the ink dries.