Flock Exposed - Towns Shutting Flock Down
A Running Tally
Councils That Voted To Cancel
El Paso, Texas. The City Council voted unanimously on September 15, 2026 to remove its decommissioned Flock cameras within 60 days and to prohibit city officials from entering into any new contract with Flock Safety or a similar ALPR provider unless the council specifically directs otherwise.
Plymouth, Minnesota. The City Council voted on September 23, 2026 to stop using all of the city's Flock cameras, citing data privacy concerns and a collapse in public trust in the company.
Bastrop, Texas. The City Council voted unanimously in September 2026 to approve Resolution R-2026-134, decommissioning the camera system and terminating or declining to renew the city's agreement with Flock Safety.
Asheville, North Carolina. The City Council voted 5 to 2 on August 25, 2026, in a heated meeting with public comment, to cancel the city's Flock Safety contract.
Lynchburg, Virginia. The City Council voted 6 to 1 to end the city's Flock contract, taking 15 license plate reading cameras and 55 gunshot detection sensors out of service.
Source: Newsweek, reporting on WSET coverage
Bandera, Texas. The City Council voted 3 to 2 on May 12, 2026 to terminate the contract, remove the existing equipment, and stop installing new cameras, according to city minutes.
El Cerrito, California. The City Council voted in May 2026 not to renew its Flock contract, and the city's cameras were switched off on June 7, 2026.
Marinette, Wisconsin. The Common Council voted to cancel its ALPR camera contract, responding to sustained community concern over privacy, data sharing, and the wider implications of AI-driven surveillance.
Tallahassee, Florida. The City Commission voted unanimously in September 2026 to immediately suspend its Flock and Motorola contracts and remove the ALPR cameras.
The Trash Bag Shutdown
Some towns have not waited for the contract to run out. Unable to confirm that the cameras were actually switched off, city crews have climbed ladders and pulled black trash bags over the lenses, blinding the equipment where it stands. It is a crude solution, and it tells you something important: these towns could not establish, from their own vendor, that the cameras had stopped collecting.
Dayton, Ohio. City workers pulled black trash bags over dozens of Flock license plate readers, rendering the devices useless. The city had already suspended use of the system over concerns that its data was reaching federal immigration enforcement, and police were reportedly unsure whether the cameras were still active, or whether the city was even permitted to take them down.
Dayton's situation began with a misconfigured privacy setting and ended with resident vehicle data flowing to federal immigration authorities. Reporting on the episode described city officials sounding the alarm over what they called egregious violations of privacy.
Waltham, Massachusetts. The mayor ordered the city's Flock cameras covered with black trash bags, a step reported to have caught the City Council itself by surprise.
Ask yourself why a town would need a trash bag at all. If a municipality that owns the contract, hosts the poles, and pays the invoice cannot simply switch the system off and verify that it stopped, then the town does not control the equipment installed on its own streets.
Why This List Matters
Every council on this list heard the same arguments your council is hearing. They were told the cameras solve crime, that the data is safe, that only sworn officers can see it, and that cancelling would make the town less safe. They looked at the contract, the retention policy, and the sharing lists anyway, and they voted to walk away. None of them were the first, and neither would your town be.
Questions to Ask Your Town
Has anyone on our board actually read the cancellation resolutions passed by the towns on this list?
What does our own contract say about terminating early, and what notice period is required?
If we shut the system off tomorrow, how would we independently verify that the cameras had actually stopped collecting?
If we decline to renew, what happens to the location data already collected on our residents, and who confirms it is deleted?
Do we automatically renew unless someone objects, and if so, when is the next renewal date?
What specifically makes our town different from the towns that have already voted this technology out?
This page will be updated as more factual sources become available.