LAPD ending deal with company operating license plate-reading cameras
The short version: ABC7 reports LAPD is walking away from its Flock Safety contract, a rare case of a major department pulling the plug on ALPR surveillance.
Our Take
Credit to ABC7's reporting team for surfacing this one: the LAPD, one of the largest police departments in the country, is reportedly ending its agreement with Flock Safety. That's not nothing. Most of the news cycle around Flock is about expansion — another city council rubber-stamping a pilot program, another county signing a multi-year deal. A department this size stepping back is worth paying attention to, even before we know the full reasoning.
We don't have all the details on why LAPD is cutting ties, and we're not going to speculate wildly. But the pattern nationally is becoming familiar: agencies sign on for a "public safety" trial, the cameras start racking up plate scans in the millions, and eventually somebody — a journalist, an auditor, a city council member — starts asking harder questions about cost, oversight, or how that data gets shared outside the department. Any one of those pressure points can be enough to unwind a contract that looked easy to approve in the first place.
The bigger lesson for people outside LA: these contracts are not permanent fixtures. They get renewed, renegotiated, or dropped, and public attention is usually what tips the scale. If you want to know what's watching your own commute, check our map of known ALPR locations, and if your city is currently weighing a Flock deal, our take-action guide has the questions worth asking before they sign.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of ABC7, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.