Flock Safety markets its technology as a crime-fighting powerhouse, with solar-powered cameras snapping photos of license plates to help law enforcement track stolen vehicles, solve hit-and-runs, and curb burglaries. The system’s national data-sharing network allows agencies to query vehicle movements across state lines for up to 30 days, a feature praised for speeding up investigations but increasingly criticized as a conduit for federal overreach. Cameras have even been installed near high-profile sites like Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, underscoring the tech’s broad footprint in American policing.
The tipping point came amid Trump’s second-term promises of mass deportations, prompting local leaders to reconsider tools that could inadvertently aid Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In Cambridge, Massachusetts, the city council unanimously voted last month to pause its Flock program—approved just nine months earlier—after residents voiced alarms about data access by federal agencies. “The problem is the federal government is going after a lot of people who aren’t doing anything wrong,” said Marc McGovern, a Democratic city council member and vice mayor. “So for me, a 56-year-old white guy, sure, take a picture of my license plate. They’re not coming after me. But it’s not about me. It’s about other groups in our community — people of color, immigrants, people who they are targeting that also need to be safe in our community.”
Similar scenes unfolded in Evanston, Illinois, where officials axed their contract in August following a state audit that exposed federal immigration enforcers querying Flock data statewide. When Flock brazenly reinstalled the cameras without permission, city workers responded by shrouding them in black plastic bags—a symbolic act of defiance that ultimately led the company to shut down the system. Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, a Democrat eyeing a congressional run, framed the decision as a moral imperative: “The most extreme public safety threat that my residents are facing is coming from ICE right now, so we have to prioritize protecting residents from ICE in our public safety efforts.”
“People feel this deeply, acutely, and they’re scared and they’re angry. They’re rising up together, and they want to be damn sure that again, not only are we not doing anything to facilitate these outrageous attacks and abductions, but also that we’re doing everything we can to keep our residents safe,” Biss added.
In Eugene, Oregon, the saga took a procedural turn as council member Jennifer Yeh called for a full review of the city’s Flock deployment. Federal entities, including the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, had tapped into local data for probes into mail fraud and narcotics trafficking—prompting Yeh to question, “Does the risk outweigh the benefits that our community would receive from the system?” She warned that Flock is “building this huge for-profit, what seems to be an uncontrollable surveillance system that was first sold to us as license plate readers… And I think people are right to be concerned.”
The unrest extends beyond these hotspots. Over the past year, localities in Washington, Oregon, Arizona, and Texas have followed suit, opting out of Flock’s federal sharing model or halting installations altogether. A brief summer pilot with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) only poured fuel on the fire, though Flock later ended the program. DHS defended its approach, stating that “utilizing different forms of technology in law enforcement investigations and activities helps combat crime, all while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests.”
Flock, which has touted its tools’ role in reducing crime by up to 70% in some areas, pushed back against the narrative of unchecked spying. Chief communications officer Josh Thomas acknowledged the charged climate: “We’re in a hard time… This feels like something that is substantive that they can do. But let’s not throw out a thing that is proven to be successful in your city at the thing you want to do, which is stop crime.” He admitted communication missteps around the DHS pilot and emphasized that data sharing requires local opt-in.
Experts see this as a microcosm of broader tensions in the ALPR ecosystem, which a 2024 congressional report deemed “relatively commonplace” in U.S. law enforcement. While the cameras excel at mundane tasks like recovering stolen cars, their networked nature blurs the line between neighborhood watch and national dragnet, disproportionately imperiling marginalized communities. As one activist in Cambridge put it, the tech risks turning “welcoming cities” into unwitting accomplices in a “declared war” on immigrants.
With Trump’s administration ramping up enforcement rhetoric, privacy advocates predict more defections from Flock’s fold. For now, these liberal bastions are betting that shielding residents from Big Brother trumps the allure of Big Data— a high-stakes gamble in an era where every scan could be a step toward sanctuary or subjugation.
