Flock Exposed - Jurisdictional Issues

WHEN NOBODY CAN TELL YOU WHO ACTUALLY CONTROLS or EVEN OWNS THE CAMERA WATCHING YOU

Compiled September 16, 2026 - all items sourced to published reporting or official government findings. Scope: this page covers documented cases where residents, journalists, or officials could not get a straight answer about which agency, company, or government body actually owns, operates, or authorized a specific surveillance camera - as distinct from a camera installed with no authorization at all (see the companion page "Cases of Unauthorized Installations") or a feature switched on remotely without permission (see "Cases of Unauthorized Activation"). This is about accountability disappearing into the gaps between overlapping governments, private entities, and a single official acting alone.

1. Southern Utah - a resident was bounced between three different agencies before anyone would even claim ownership of the camera outside her home

A southern Utah homeowner asked to have a license plate reader camera positioned in front of her house moved or explained, and found that no single agency would take ownership of the request. She first contacted her own town, which pointed her to a neighboring city's police department, which in turn told her the camera actually belonged to the county sheriff's office. Only after being redirected three separate times did she get a straight answer about who to even ask.

Source: Local Utah television reporting, August 2026

2. Lebanon, Illinois - the police department and city hall both say they don't know who owns an active camera in town

As ALPR cameras expanded across the neighboring towns of Mascoutah and Lebanon, Illinois, reporting found that both the Lebanon Police Department and Lebanon City Hall stated they do not know who owns one particular advanced license plate reader camera - a more sophisticated model than the other Genetec-brand readers already known to be operating in the area. The camera continues to operate while ownership remains publicly unresolved.

Source: Herald Publications, "ALPR Cameras Expand across Mascoutah and Lebanon; Ownership of One Advanced Lebanon Camera Remains Unknown," August 19, 2026

3. Lakeway, Texas - a homeowners association and a police chief struck a surveillance deal the city council never saw

In Lakeway, Texas, a private homeowners association called Rough Hollow partnered directly with the town's own police chief to install eight license plate reader cameras covering both private and public roads, without the agreement ever going before the city council or city staff. The police chief signed on to give his department direct access to the HOA's camera footage on his own authority. Residents said they had no information, policies, or protections around a surveillance system that had already been operating in their neighborhood for six months by the time most of them learned it existed - and because the deal ran through a private HOA rather than the city government, ordinary channels for public accountability, like a city council vote, never applied to it in the first place.

Source: The Intercept, "Police, Private HOAs Team Up to Buy License Plate Readers," 2023; Austin American-Statesman, "HOA in Lakeway to remove cameras installed without city permission," 2021; Community Impact, "Rough Hollow surveillance cameras to be removed from Lakeway city streets," 2021

4. Muncie, Indiana - a police chief signed a 300,000 dollar surveillance deal with no council vote, no public notice, and no civil liberties review

The Muncie Police Department's relationship with Flock Safety began in June 2022 when then-Chief Nathan Sloan signed an initial agreement on his own authority. Reporting found the department went on to quietly sign a contract worth roughly 300,000 dollars with no City Council vote, no public notice, and no civil liberties review of any kind - the public only learned the scope of the arrangement well after the fact. A promised public transparency portal was later found to return only a blank page, leaving residents with no working window into how the system was actually being used.

Source: Muncie Voice, "Muncie's Secret Flock Surveillance Deal"; Muncie Voice, "Muncie And Delaware County Are Shielding Mass Surveillance From The Public"

5. Coralville, Iowa - the police chief signed a two-year contract that the city council didn't even know existed until months later

Coralville Police Chief Kyle Nicholson signed a 36,000 dollar, two-year contract with Flock Safety on May 12, 2025, roughly two weeks before the new fiscal year began. The contract was not discussed in any city council meeting or disclosed to the public before it was signed, and a councilmember later confirmed it was finalized before council had formally weighed in at all - the council did not formally approve a related policy until a meeting four months later, on September 23, 2025. A resident who addressed the council afterward asked pointedly what personnel changes would be made "so that a contract of this size and nature can never again be signed without your knowledge and approval." The council ultimately voted to end the contract and remove the cameras in February 2026.

Source: Have I Been Flocked?, "All the Chief's Men: How Coralville's Flock Contract Bypassed Oversight"; The Daily Iowan, "Coralville city councilors end Flock camera contract," 2026; Little Village, "Coralville City Council ends Flock contract signed by police chief after backlash," 2026; Iowa Public Radio, "Coralville terminates Flock license plate reader contract after months of public outcry," 2026

6. Millcreek, Utah - a working camera sat on city property for years, and the city, the regional police force, and Flock's own contract records all came up blank on who it belonged to

A Flock license plate reader was discovered mounted on Millcreek, Utah city property near Millcreek Common. City Council member Thom DeSirant confirmed Millcreek did not authorize the installation and doesn't know who did, and neither Millcreek nor the Unified Police Department - the regional force that actually polices the city - holds a Flock contract tied to the device. The mayor offered two competing theories, including that a private company that owned the site years earlier may have installed it to watch its own parking lot, but the city could not confirm either one. The camera was found powered off and not collecting data when public works crews finally removed it, and no person or agency ever came forward to claim it.

Source: Yahoo News / KUTV, "A Mystery Flock Camera Appeared in a City - and Nobody Knows Who Installed It"; Gadget Review, "A Mystery Flock Camera Appeared in a City - and Nobody Knows Who Installed It"; ABC4, "Where did it come from? Unclaimed Flock camera removed from Millcreek city property amid resident concerns"; Fox13 Now, "Millcreek City officials remove Flock camera of unknown origins"

7. Delano, Minnesota - a camera sits in state right-of-way, run by the county sheriff, and the city says it has no authority over it at all

A Flock camera along Highway 12 in Delano, Minnesota is operated by the Wright County Sheriff's Office, not the City of Delano - but the camera itself sits in state right-of-way, which City Administrator Phil Kern said the city has no authority to regulate in the first place. Kern said elected city officials were not consulted before the Sheriff's Office installed it, and an informal survey of residents found genuine uncertainty about how many cameras even exist around town or exactly where they are. The result is a camera that touches three layers of government at once - state-owned land, a county agency's equipment, and a city with residents living right next to it - where the city itself says regulating it simply isn't its call to make.

Source: Delano Herald Journal, "Flock camera in Delano raises questions over privacy, local oversight"

8. Knox County, Tennessee - the county's own mayor concluded the sheriff had been running 140 cameras for two years on a contract that had already expired

Knox County's Flock relationship began with a contract the Sheriff's Office signed with the company back in 2020. County Mayor Glenn Jacobs later informed Flock in writing that he did not believe that 2020 contract was still valid, that there was no current service agreement in place, and separately that any contract of that size, roughly 800,000 dollars, legally required approval from the County Commission that it never received. Despite that, approximately 140 to 143 cameras had continued operating throughout the county for roughly two years past the point the original agreement should have expired, with commissioners themselves telling reporters they were unclear whether the sheriff's arrangement with Flock was even currently valid. The County Commission ultimately voted unanimously for an emergency ordinance requiring the cameras' removal within 30 days.

Source: WVLT, "Knox County mayor disputes validity of Flock camera contract," August 25, 2026; WVLT, "Knox County Sheriff's Office agreement with Flock may be invalid, letter from mayor says," August 24, 2026; WATE, "Knox County to remove all Flock cameras in 30 days: Commissioner, lawyer explain why"; WVLT, "Knox County Commission passes emergency ordinance to remove Flock cameras," September 1, 2026; Spectrum News 1, "Knox County commissioners share concerns about license plate readers with Flock," August 26, 2026

9. Bernalillo County, New Mexico - a contract ended, the cameras stayed up, and a resident took ownership into his own hands

After the Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office announced it was canceling its contracts with Flock Safety over privacy concerns, resident Jevon Martinez noticed the county's license plate readers were still standing weeks later. Rather than wait for the county to act, Martinez filmed himself tearing down roughly ten camera systems, worth an estimated 16,500 dollars, loaded them into his pickup truck, and drove to the Sheriff's Office to return them himself, telling deputies he was simply helping them out since he knew they were busy. Sheriff John Allen did not see it that way, stating that canceling a contract was "not permission to take property," and deputies surrounded Martinez's truck with weapons drawn before arresting him. The episode captures the same underlying jurisdictional gap seen throughout this page: even after an agency itself decides to end a Flock relationship, no clear, timely process exists for who is actually responsible for taking the equipment down, leaving cameras running in the meantime and a resident who is arrested for doing what the county itself said it intended to do.

Source: Police1, "Man dismantles Flock cameras, drops them off at Bernalillo County Sheriff's Office"; Futurism, "Man Rolls Up to Police Station With Pickup Truck Full of Torn Up Flock Cameras"; KRQE, "Third New Mexico law enforcement agency cuts ties with Flock Safety"; RedState, "The Nationwide Pushback Against Flock Cameras Has Begun," September 12, 2026

10. Nationwide - even the installers weren't who residents assumed, since DISH Network's own service arm was putting up the cameras

DISH Network's installation arm, OnTech Smart Services, was among the contractors involved in installing Flock Safety cameras nationwide, and reporting indicated DISH technicians were responsible for a large share of Flock installs across the country. OnTech is among the largest smart home service providers in the U.S., with prior contracts that included ADT smart home security installs, and was reportedly chosen as a partner because it already had a large national force of outdoor technicians. That means a resident trying to figure out who put a camera on their street, or who to even call about it, might reasonably assume a satellite-TV company's branded van had nothing to do with police surveillance - one more layer of the same accountability gap this page documents, where the entity physically installing the equipment is not the agency that authorized it, and often isn't obvious to residents at all.

Source: Yahoo News, "That DISH Van on Your Block? It Might Be Installing a Police Surveillance Camera"

After the arrangement drew public backlash, DISH ended its contract to install Flock cameras, and field technicians were told to uninstall the Flock app from their work devices and return any Flock hardware still in their trucks.

Source: Cord Cutters News, "DISH Ends Its Contract To Install Flock Cameras After Backlash"

WHY THIS MATTERS

A camera that no one will claim ownership of is a camera no one is accountable for. When a resident cannot get a straight answer about which government body, private entity, or vendor is responsible for a piece of surveillance equipment pointed at their home or street - or when a single department head can commit a town to a surveillance contract before its own elected board even knows it exists - there is no one to send a records request to, no elected body that had a chance to vote it down, and no clear line of authority to challenge in court. Fragmented ownership and one-official decision-making are not just confusing - they are themselves a way that accountability disappears.

This page will be updated as more factual sources become available.