Legal Matters: What Minnesota's privacy law actually says about Flock cameras
The short version: KARE 11's Chad Florin explains Minnesota's privacy protections around Flock cameras, but legal gray areas still leave residents exposed to warrantless surveillance.
Our Take
Credit to KARE 11 and attorney Chad Florin for digging into a question a lot of Minnesotans are asking: does state privacy law actually rein in Flock Safety's camera network, or is it just words on paper? The honest answer, as these legal breakdowns usually reveal, is 'it's complicated' — and complicated is exactly how mass surveillance systems like to operate. When the rules are murky, the cameras keep running and the data keeps flowing.
What matters here isn't just what's technically legal today, it's who gets to decide tomorrow. Flock's ALPR network was sold to cities as a tool for solving specific crimes, but the infrastructure captures the movements of every driver, every day, regardless of suspicion. A state privacy statute written before this technology existed is a thin shield against a system built to scale nationwide and share data across jurisdictions with little public oversight.
If you're in Minnesota and wondering whether your own street has one of these cameras, check our map to see what's already been deployed near you. And if you think your city council should be asking harder questions before renewing a Flock contract, our take-action page has tools to help you push back before the next budget cycle locks it in.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KARE 11, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.