LAPD Ends Surveillance Deal Over Privacy Concerns

Our Take

Credit to Knewdex News for flagging this one: a department as large and influential as the LAPD stepping back from a Flock Safety contract is notable, even if the full details of what drove the decision are still thin. Big-city police departments rarely walk away from surveillance tech once it's installed — budgets get built around it, officers get used to the convenience, and vendors like Flock are skilled at making themselves indispensable. So if civil liberties concerns genuinely factored into LAPD cutting ties, that's worth paying attention to.

It also underscores something we say constantly: these contracts aren't permanent fixtures, they're policy choices, and policy choices can be reversed when enough scrutiny lands on them. Flock's pitch to cities is always about solving crime, but the actual footprint is a rolling, searchable record of where everyone's car has been — accessible to a sprawling web of agencies with little independent oversight. When a department the size of LAPD's starts to reconsider that bargain, it validates the pushback communities have been raising in city council meetings across the country.

If your local police department has a similar deal in place, don't wait for a viral video to find out — check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and use our take-action resources to start asking your own city the hard questions.