Source : TechCrunch
SAN FRANCISCO, November 5, 2026 – At least 10 local governments and police departments in the United States have moved since summer to curb, restrict or end their use of Flock Safety surveillance technology, TechCrunch reported, as privacy and data-sharing concerns grow.
In a post shared on X, TechCrunch summarised the concerns as ranging from privacy to how data is shared — and with whom — to procurement. The full report by Dominic-Madori Davis said Flock, founded in 2017, sells licence plate readers, drones and microphone-based devices marketed to help solve crimes such as finding missing people or stolen cars, with more than 100,000 cameras in use nationwide.
Cities ending or voting against contracts
TechCrunch listed Monroe, Ohio; Newburgh, New York; Richmond, Virginia; Hopkinton and New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Lansing, Michigan, among places that have moved to end Flock contracts. Police in East Bridgewater and Grafton, Massachusetts, also announced plans to stop using the cameras. This week, residents of League City, Texas, voted against continued use of Flock licence plate readers, with cameras set to be removed, the report said.
Asheville, North Carolina, police lost access after the city voted to terminate its contract in August, and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado said in September it would stop using Flock. Sheriff Joseph Roybal said the county had the tools to locate and apprehend criminals without relying on the cameras, according to a press release quoted by TechCrunch.
Misuse, ICE access and company response
The report also cited misuse cases, including an officer in Brentwood, Missouri, accused of using Flock cameras to stalk an ex-wife, and an East Texas officer sentenced to prison for using Flock to stalk an ex-girlfriend and her family. Ithaca, New York, passed a March resolution to terminate its contract after reviewing reports that Flock infrastructure had been used by federal agents, including ICE and ATF, without specific local authorisation.
Flock told TechCrunch that every customer owns its data and controls sharing, that Flock does not sell data and has no contract with ICE, and that removing a tool used to solve violent crime “moves public safety backward”. In August, Flock said it would shorten the default data-retention period for new customers from 30 days to seven and require a case code before database searches.
At state level, Florida barred licence plate readers from state highways and Texas paused state funding for Flock, TechCrunch said. Bills such as the Flock-Off Act and the Ban Flock Act have been introduced in Congress. Life News Agency earlier reported on US cities struggling to remove Flock equipment after cancellation votes; Friday’s TechCrunch account focuses on the growing list of jurisdictions choosing to drop or restrict the technology.
Source: TechCrunch on X and TechCrunch report by Dominic-Madori Davis, November 5, 2026.
Source : TechCrunch
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