Cities Terminating Flock Safety Leases Report Ignored Cancellations and Unauthorized Camera Reactivations

Municipalities seeking to exit automated license plate reader contracts with Flock Safety are running into extended delays, unresponsive vendor representatives, and unauthorized hardware reactivations, according to an investigation published by The Verge .

The offboarding disputes come as a growing number of local governments reconsider municipal surveillance partnerships. Atlanta-based Flock Group Inc., which has raised $950 million in venture funding and secured a $7.5 billion private valuation, operates automated license plate recognition (ALPR) networks across thousands of U.S. communities. While Flock pitches its solar-powered Falcon cameras as modular, lease-based crime-fighting infrastructure, local administrators attempting to wind down deployments report significant operational friction when trying to get the company to retrieve or disable its hardware.

In Plymouth, Minnesota, the city council voted in September to terminate its municipal contract with Flock. After more than a month passed without an acknowledgment or removal schedule from the vendor, local law enforcement stepped in physically. Plymouth Police Chief Eric Fadden confirmed to automotive outlet The Drive that after waiting more than a week without contact, he directed department personnel to disconnect power cables from the cameras to guarantee they were neither functioning nor logging license plates.

Roughly 20 miles away, local officials in Dayton, Minnesota, reported similar pushback after moving to halt their ALPR program. Although Flock acknowledged Dayton's cancellation and stated that hardware removal could take up to 60 days, the company subsequently reconnected two cameras inside city limits without municipal consent. According to a public statement posted by the City of Dayton, the police department discovered a Flock maintenance work order on September 17 and formally instructed the company on September 18 that the deployment was paused and no work orders should be executed. Flock technicians re-energized the units regardless.

The friction is not isolated to Minnesota. In Illinois, administrators at Elgin Community College encountered resistance when attempting to cancel their contract, reporting that Flock refused to take down cameras and removed physical coverings that staff had placed over the lenses. Similar decommissioning disputes have surfaced in other jurisdictions, including Verona, Wisconsin, where municipal staff covered cameras with trash bags after the company objected to local removal, and Cleveland, Ohio, where cameras remained operational following a council vote against renewal.

Flock, which did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Verge regarding its cancellation procedures, maintains in customer documentation that it follows a standard offboarding protocol while mid-term contract cancellations undergo a separate process. However, as public scrutiny, regulatory challenges, and municipal pushback lead more than 200 cities and counties to reconsider their contracts, the startup faces growing administrative pressure over whether it can honor work-stop orders as promptly as it deploys hardware.