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LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire, citing ‘serious concerns’ over civil liberties and privacy
LAPD ends Flock Safety contract over privacy concerns, citing serious civil liberties issues with the surveillance company's license plate cameras. The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is terminating its three-year contract with Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based surveillance firm that operates thousands of license plate recognition cameras nationwide. The contract expires Saturday and will not be renewed, according to LAPD Chief Information Officer Dean Gialamas, who cited "serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data being collected." The department plans to revisit the relationship only after data privacy, security, and sharing concerns are resolved through new contractual language. The LAPD — the third-largest U.S. police department and one of Flock's biggest government customers — joins other major cities like Mountain View, California, and South Portland, Maine, in dropping Flock amid similar privacy fears and allegations that immigration authorities used the cameras to track individuals in violation of sanctuary city laws. Flock spokesperson Holly Beilin said the contract expiry came as a "surprise," but the company believes it can "clear up the current misconceptions." Flock's network of at least 80,000 cameras scans license plates for police and federal agencies, but has drawn backlash over false positives that have led to motorists being pulled over at gunpoint or jailed. Security lapses have exposed live camera feeds and data; in one case, 404 Media viewed themselves on publicly exposed Flock cameras. Lawmakers have urged federal consumer authorities to investigate Flock for failing to implement multi-factor authentication on police user logins, and the DEA reportedly used a local officer's password without authorization to search for a suspect. Local communities have dismantled or covered Flock cameras, and some residents report cameras being reinstalled without permission.