Overview
- Florida’s Department of Transportation this week revoked permits for license‑plate readers on state highways, and multiple Florida agencies have begun removing Flock cameras from state roads.
- Reporting and audits have documented dozens of unauthorized searches, wrongful sharing with federal agencies and frequent false alerts that prompted internal probes and criminal charges for more than two dozen Georgia officers.
- Flock Safety has shortened its default data retention from 30 days to seven days and added mandatory audit tools and case‑code requirements while many cities are pausing or canceling contracts.
- State actions in Texas and Florida, local cancellations in dozens of cities, and proposed federal bills such as the FLOCK OFF Act aim to restrict taxpayer funding and reshape procurement of ALPR systems.
- The dispute pits police accounts of faster crime solving and locating missing people against privacy advocates’ warnings that aggregated plate data creates searchable movement histories and may be replaced by other vendors unless binding rules are adopted.