When Canceling Flock Safety Contracts Becomes an Uphill Battle for Cities

Local governments attempting to cancel contracts with automated license plate reader provider Flock Safety are discovering that parting ways with the surveillance tech company is rarely straightforward. Across multiple states, municipal leaders have reported that the company routinely fails to acknowledge termination requests, leaves hardware installed for months, or, in some cases, puts deactivated cameras back into service without permission.

Take Plymouth, Minnesota, where the city council voted to terminate its agreement with Flock in September. After receiving no response or confirmation for over a week following multiple inquiries, local police took matters into their own hands. Police Chief Eric Fadden directed department staff to physically unplug the power cords from the roadside devices to guarantee they would stop capturing and recording passing license plates.

Roughly twenty miles away in Dayton, Minnesota, officials faced a different twist. While the company acknowledged the city's cancellation notice, it claimed removal could take up to two months. Yet, despite explicit written instructions from local law enforcement to halt any work orders, technicians reconnected two cameras within city limits anyway.

Similar friction has popped up elsewhere, including an incident at Elgin Community College in Illinois where administrative attempts to drop the vendor met with resistance and unremoved hardware. When asked about the growing complaints, Flock Safety representatives maintained that the company respects municipal choices and works alongside customers to clear out equipment, even as towns continue to document prolonged removal delays and unauthorized maintenance.

The ongoing friction highlights the administrative and logistical challenges municipalities face when trying to extricate themselves from private surveillance contracts. As more regions reconsider their automated license plate reader programs, the messy exit process has transformed routine municipal contract terminations into prolonged standoffs over physical hardware.