Cities That Ditched Flock Cameras Are Still Under Surveillance
Activists who won fights against one licence-plate tracking company are discovering their local governments simply switched to a different vendor, and the cameras stayed up.
Key points
- Longmont, Colorado voted in December to let its contract with licence-plate reader company Flock Safety expire.
- Months later, the city council approved a new vendor to install the same type of surveillance cameras on city streets.
- Automated licence-plate readers (ALPRs) are roadside cameras that photograph every passing car and log its location and time of travel.
- Civil liberties campaigners say the vendor swap shows the fight against mass vehicle surveillance is harder than winning a single council vote.
- The pattern is repeating in other cities where Flock Safety was removed.
Activists in Longmont, Colorado thought they'd won. In December, the city council voted not to renew its deal with Flock Safety, a company that sells automated licence-plate readers, known as ALPRs. The cameras photograph every car that drives past, recording its plate number, location and time. Residents celebrated. It didn't last.
What actually changed?
Practically nothing. The council approved a different company to put the same cameras on the same streets. Flock Safety's name is gone from the contract; the surveillance isn't. The Guardian Technology found this swap-and-continue pattern in Longmont and in other cities where residents had campaigned against Flock contracts. We covered Flock Safety's conduct directly on 17 August, when the company's CEO admitted its data had been misused by officers including one in Massachusetts accused of tracking an ex-girlfriend.
Should residents be worried about this data?
Yes. Every time a car passes one of these cameras, it creates a record. Those records accumulate into a detailed picture of someone's routines: where they work, where they worship, which medical clinic they attend. That data is typically stored by the vendor, can be shared with other police departments and can be handed over in response to legal requests.
The cameras don't target suspects. They photograph every car, every time.
| Event | Date | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Longmont votes not to renew Flock contract | December 2024 | Longmont, Colorado |
| Longmont approves new ALPR vendor | Early 2025 | Longmont, Colorado |
| Campaigners report same pattern in other cities | 2025 | Multiple US cities |
What can ordinary drivers do?
Very little stops a camera from reading a plate on a public road. What residents can do is attend city council meetings where these contracts are voted on, and ask councillors which vendor holds the contract, how long data is kept and whether it can be shared or sold. Many ALPR contracts pass quietly on consent agendas, which bundle routine items and rarely attract public debate.
Knowing the contract exists is the first step to challenging it. Replacing a vendor's name doesn't change what the system does, and that's the lesson Longmont's activists are learning the hard way.
