Legislative Director Gary Daniels testimony at Flock Safety Cameras Audit Review on August 10, 2026
The short version: ACLU Ohio's Gary Daniels presses Columbus City Council to reckon with Flock Safety's audit findings, spotlighting the gap between promises and practice.
Our Take
When a civil liberties lawyer gets a slot in front of a city council's public safety committee to talk about an internal audit of Flock cameras, it's worth paying attention. Gary Daniels of ACLU Ohio has spent years pushing Columbus and other Ohio cities to answer basic questions about ALPR deployments — who can query the data, how long it's kept, what oversight actually exists beyond a vendor's marketing copy. An audit review hearing is exactly the kind of moment where those questions either get real answers or get buried in bureaucratic hand-waving.
What makes this testimony worth watching isn't just the Columbus-specific details, it's the pattern. City after city adopts Flock's network first and asks the hard governance questions later, if at all. Audits are supposed to be the check on that impulse, but an audit is only as good as the willingness of elected officials to act on what it finds. Daniels showing up to hold that line publicly is the kind of pressure that keeps these systems from running on autopilot.
If you're in Columbus or anywhere else Flock has quietly expanded, don't wait for your city council to volunteer an audit. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and hit take action for ways to push your own local officials toward the same scrutiny Daniels brought to Columbus.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of acluohio, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.