Manvel city council votes to end Flock camera use
The short version: Manvel's city council voted unanimously to ditch Flock ALPR cameras, proving local pressure can actually roll back surveillance once it's installed.
Our Take
Credit where it's due: ABC13 Houston caught a rare win for privacy advocates. Most Flock stories we cover involve a city council rubber-stamping a new contract or quietly renewing one. Manvel did the opposite — a unanimous vote to pull the plug. That doesn't happen because a surveillance company volunteers to leave town. It happens because residents showed up, asked hard questions, and made elected officials uncomfortable enough to act.
This matters beyond one small Texas city. Flock's whole business model depends on the assumption that once a council approves cameras, they're permanent infrastructure — nobody budgets time to revisit the decision, and the data-sharing network just keeps growing by default. Manvel just proved that assumption wrong. It's a reminder that these contracts are not irreversible, and that elected bodies answer to the people footing the bill and getting their plates scanned, not to a vendor's renewal schedule.
If you want to see whether your own city has Flock cameras up and running, check our map. And if Manvel's vote gives you an idea, our take-action page has the tools to push your own council toward the same conversation.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of ABC13 Houston, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.