Montgomery County Sheriff announces end of Flock Safety use
The short version: A Virginia sheriff's decision to drop Flock Safety cameras shows local pushback on ALPR surveillance can actually work.
Our Take
Credit to WFXR News for getting Sheriff Page on record explaining why Montgomery County is pulling the plug on its Flock Safety contract. We don't have the full internal reasoning, but any time a sheriff publicly reverses course on ALPR deployment, it's worth paying attention to. These cameras don't get removed by accident — someone asked hard questions about cost, data retention, or whether the promised crime-fighting results actually materialized.
This matters because the standard playbook for Flock and similar vendors is to get a camera network installed quietly, let it become routine, and make it politically awkward to ever claw back. A county actually walking it back, publicly, is the exception that proves these systems aren't inevitable once installed. It's a reminder that local sheriffs and boards of supervisors are the actual decision point — not some unstoppable federal mandate — and that public pressure or budget scrutiny can move them.
If you want to see whether ALPR cameras are already watching your commute, check our map, and if you'd rather your county follow Montgomery's lead than expand its network, our take-action page has concrete steps for showing up at the next public safety meeting.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WFXR NEWS, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.