Cities are canceling Flock ALPR cameras and quietly adding Axon ALPR cameras
The short version: Swapping Flock for Axon doesn't fix mass ALPR surveillance — it just changes the logo on the pole and the vendor cashing the check.
Our Take
KAWPS The Podcast flags something we've been watching too: cities ditching Flock Safety contracts only to quietly sign up with Axon for the same kind of automated license plate reader network. Credit to them for digging into how the two companies' offerings actually compare, because the headline — "city cancels Flock" — tends to get reported as a privacy win when it's often just a vendor swap.
The underlying problem was never which logo is stamped on the camera housing. It's the architecture: every plate, every car, every trip logged and run against databases, shared across agencies and sometimes states, with minimal public oversight no matter who's selling the hardware. Axon has its own data-sharing ambitions and law enforcement relationships, and nothing about switching vendors guarantees tighter retention limits, better audit trails, or less mission creep into immigration enforcement or tracking people exercising their First Amendment rights.
If your city is debating "replacing" Flock, that's actually the moment to push for real guardrails — public audit logs, strict retention caps, bans on out-of-state and federal data sharing — not just a new contract with a different Fortune 500 name on it. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and use our take-action resources to push your council past the shell game of vendor swaps and toward actually rolling back the surveillance.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KAWPS The Podcast, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.