Reynoldsburg ends Flock cameras

Our Take

Credit to WBNS 10TV for flagging this one: Reynoldsburg's mayor says the city is done with Flock Safety's automated license plate readers. We don't have every detail on what drove the decision, but the pattern is familiar — a city adopts the cameras with promises of catching stolen cars and violent offenders, then quietly realizes it's also built a permanent, searchable record of where every driver goes.

That's the real story with ALPR networks. They're marketed as narrow crime-fighting tools, but the data they generate can sit in databases for months, get shared across agencies and states, and get queried for reasons that have nothing to do with the original pitch. When local officials pull back, it's usually because someone finally asked the hard questions about oversight, retention, and who actually has access.

Reynoldsburg joins a growing list of towns reconsidering these deals. If you want to see whether Flock cameras are running in your own community, check our camera map, and if you'd rather push your city toward the exit instead of waiting for a headline, our take-action guide has the playbook other residents used to get there.