Houston-area community votes to end use of Flock cameras | Here's why
The short version: Manvel, Texas city council voted unanimously to cut ties with Flock Safety, joining a growing list of towns that looked at the cameras and said no thanks.
Our Take
Credit to KHOU 11 for getting this one on camera: a unanimous city council vote is a rare and clean signal. When elected officials from different corners of the political spectrum all land on "end the contract," it usually means someone asked hard questions about cost, oversight, and what the cameras were actually catching versus what they were promised to catch.
Manvel joins a growing list of towns pumping the brakes on Flock, and that matters beyond city limits. Every ALPR network that goes dark locally is one less node feeding into the sprawling, largely unregulated web of plate-read data that gets shared across agencies, states, and sometimes private companies with little public accountability. These systems don't just watch for stolen cars — they build a searchable history of everywhere a plate has been, often with minimal retention limits or audit trails.
If your city council hasn't had this conversation yet, this is the moment to start it. Check our map to see what's already watching your streets, and use our take-action guide to push for the same kind of scrutiny Manvel just gave Flock.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KHOU 11, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.