Plymouth City Council votes to stop using all its Flock license plate readers
The short version: Plymouth, Minnesota just pulled the plug on all 16 of its Flock cameras, proving city councils can reverse course on surveillance once they start asking hard questions.
Our Take
Credit to KARE 11 for covering a story that doesn't get enough airtime: a city actually unwinding a Flock Safety contract instead of expanding it. Plymouth's 16 cameras had been running since 2023, quietly logging every plate that passed through town, and now the council has decided enough is enough. That's not a small thing — once these systems go in, the default is almost always 'renew and add more,' not 'shut it down.'
What makes this notable is the precedent. Every city weighing a Flock contract gets told the same pitch about solving crime, but few get shown the flip side: a searchable database of everyone's movements, shared across agencies with little independent oversight. Plymouth's reversal suggests that when council members actually dig into how the data is used, retained, and accessed, the math doesn't always favor keeping the cameras running.
If you want to see whether your own neighborhood has ALPRs watching your plate right now, check the map. And if you'd rather your city council have the same conversation Plymouth just did, our take-action page has the tools to start pushing.
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.