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When Cities Cancel Flock Safety, the Cameras Don’t Always Go Quietly

Canceling a contract should be the end of the story. But for a growing number of municipalities, ending a relationship with Flock Safety has become the beginning of a strange, frustrating battle over who controls the cameras that watch their streets. The Atlanta-based company has built a vast network of automated license plate readers across the United States, marketing them as a cost-effective way for police to solve and prevent crime. But as more cities reconsider those contracts over privacy, cost, and public accountability, some local officials are discovering that the company does not always leave quietly when the agreement is terminated.

In Plymouth, Minnesota, the city council voted in September to terminate its contract with Flock Safety. The public decision was made, the vote was recorded, and the expectation was that the cameras would be taken down. But the company did not respond. For more than a month, the cameras remained mounted on public infrastructure, still capable of capturing and recording the license plates of every passing vehicle. The city received no acknowledgment from Flock, no plan for removal, and no explanation for the silence. Police Chief Eric Fadden eventually concluded that waiting any longer was not acceptable. He directed his own staff to take direct action.

“After hearing nothing for more than a week, I directed our staff to disconnect the power cords from the cameras in order to be sure that they are not functioning or recording plates,” Fadden told The Drive.

His decision turned a mundane administrative matter into a striking symbol of the growing problem: when a private surveillance vendor stops answering, local governments may have little immediate recourse beyond unplugging the hardware themselves. Fadden’s move ensured that, at least in Plymouth, the cameras would no longer be part of daily life on the streets. But the fact that a police chief had to resort to manual disconnection to enforce a city council vote was, for many observers, a troubling indicator of contractual imbalance.

Roughly 20 miles up the road, the city of Dayton, Minnesota, has been experiencing a similarly problematic situation with Flock Safety, though the details are different. In Dayton, the company did acknowledge the city’s request to cancel and said it would need up to 60 days to remove the equipment. That timeline alone was already a source of frustration for officials who had expected a quicker exit. But the situation escalated when Flock went beyond merely delaying the removal and took action that the city says was unauthorized.

According to a statement from the city, the Dayton Police Department was made aware of a maintenance work order produced by Flock on September 17, 2026. The city quickly responded, notifying Flock the next day that the program was on hold and that no work orders were to be completed. That directive was explicit and unambiguous. Yet it was not followed. Despite the city’s instructions, Flock completed the work order anyway, and a camera was placed back into service within the city limits without authorization. The city had specifically asked that no work be done, and the company went ahead with it anyway.

The city included the following in its statement to explain what happened: “On September 17, 2026, the Police Department was made aware of a maintenance work order produced by Flock. The City notified Flock on September 18, 2026, that the program was on hold, and no work orders were to be completed. Unfortunately, the City’s direction was not followed, and the camera was placed back into service without authorization.”

The unauthorized reconnection is especially troubling because it came after police had already made clear that the system was supposed to be offline. A work order that was supposed to maintain or service the cameras was, in effect, used to put the cameras back into an active state while the city was trying to end the arrangement. For local officials, the incident undermines the idea that the city retains ultimate control over its own streets. For privacy advocates, it is an example of how surveillance infrastructure can persist even after the democratic process says it should go.

Flock Safety, for its part, has publicly maintained that it respects the decisions of the communities it works with. Spokesperson Andrew Smith told The Verge, “We are proud of the impact our technology has had in Plymouth. We respect the city’s decision and are working with the customer to have the cameras removed.” That statement, however, does not directly address the silence in Plymouth or the unauthorized reconnection in Dayton. It also does not answer a central question: why would a company that claims to respect local decision-making ignore a termination notice for weeks, or complete a work order that a city had explicitly placed on hold? The public response is polite, but the behavior on the ground appears, in these cases, to have been anything but cooperative.

These two Minnesota incidents are not isolated. In Illinois, Elgin Community College found itself in a similar predicament after administrators sought to cancel the school’s contract with Flock Safety. According to previous reporting, the company refused to take down its cameras and had even left them uncovered and in place after the administration tried to end the agreement. The college was left with the awkward task of dealing with a vendor that seemed unwilling to accept its cancellation. The details of that dispute remain a cautionary tale for any institution, city, or police department that signs on to a surveillance system without a clear, enforceable exit plan.

The pattern across these cases is concerning for multiple reasons. First, there is the issue of practical oversight. Public streets and campus infrastructure are not the property of a private company, no matter who installed cameras on them. When a contract is terminated, the continued presence of hardware is not merely an inconvenience; it means that surveillance may still be happening without public consent. In Plymouth, the police chief worried specifically that the cameras were “functioning or recording plates.” In Dayton, a camera was actually put back into service. If a city council has voted to end a surveillance program, the continued collection of license plate data is a clear violation of the public’s expectation.

Second, there is the issue of data. License plate readers by design collect information about every vehicle that passes within their field of view. That data is valuable not only to police but potentially to the company itself, particularly if it is used to improve algorithms, build analytical models, or assist other customers. The longer disconnected cameras remain active, or the longer unauthorized cameras remain plugged in, the more data is collected without legal authority or public oversight. For a community that has decided to sever ties with Flock, every extra day of data collection is an unwarranted extension of surveillance.

Third, these cases raise questions about the limits of contract enforcement. When a city cancels a contract, it typically has legal remedies available, but those remedies are slow, expensive, and rarely practical for a camera mounted on a pole. Few small cities are prepared to sue a technology vendor over a refusal to remove hardware. The result is an asymmetry of power: the company can delay, ignore, or make mistakes, while the city is left to find creative solutions. In Plymouth, that creative solution involved a police chief sending staff out with screwdrivers and power tools. Not every community will be so proactive. Not every police chief will be willing to physically unplug equipment from a vendor that may be a future business partner. And in some cases, no one may notice the cameras are still recording for months or years.

There is also the broader context of how automatically these systems have been adopted. Flock Safety has grown rapidly by appealing to local law enforcement and neighborhood groups, often framing its technology as a neutral tool for fighting crime. Its cameras are inexpensive, easy to install, and integrated with a cloud platform that shares alerts across jurisdictions. But the same features that make the system appealing also make it difficult to dismantle. The cameras are not office equipment sitting in a locked room; they are attached to public poles, connected to power sources, and integrated into the routines of police departments. Removing them takes time, and if the vendor is slow to act, they can remain in place indefinitely.

In the best case, a cancellation is handled smoothly: the vendor acknowledges the notice, sets a removal date, and honors it. In the case of Plymouth, the city received no acknowledgment at all. In the case of Dayton, the city received an acknowledgment that promised removal within 60 days, but the company still managed to install or reactivate cameras after being told not to. In the case of Elgin Community College, the company reportedly refused to take down cameras and left them uncovered despite the administration’s decision to cancel.

These incidents should be a wake-up call for every local government currently contracting with Flock Safety, or considering doing so. Public officials need to know what happens after termination. Are there automatic shutoff instructions? Are the power sources controlled by the city? Can the company remotely disable the cameras? What is the maximum number of days the equipment may remain after cancellation? Who is liable if the cameras remain active and continue recording? These are not abstract legal questions. They are operational realities that can decide whether a community’s cancellation vote is honored or ignored.

Flock Safety’s comment to The Verge—expressing pride in its impact and a commitment to working with customers on removal—does not erase the lived experience of the cities involved. It may be that these cases represent isolated failures of communication rather than corporate policy. But for the officials who had to physically unplug cameras, or who watched as unauthorized cameras were placed back into service, the distinction is cold comfort. The technology is on their streets, and until it is gone, it continues to watch. The public has no way of knowing what those cameras captured in the weeks or days after a cancellation request was sent.

As more cities move toward ending contracts with Flock Safety, the company has a choice to make. It can embrace a cooperative, transparent approach that respects the democratic decisions of the communities it serves. Or it can continue to create the impression that its cameras do not leave easily, forcing police chiefs to unplug them by hand. The latter approach is unlikely to build trust. And in an environment already skeptical of mass surveillance, it may convince even more cities that the best way to deal with an automated license plate reader is to never install one in the first place.

In the meantime, Plymouth’s cameras are disconnected. Dayton is working through its own dispute. Elgin Community College has already lived through its ordeal. Their experiences may serve as a warning to others: when it comes to surveillance infrastructure, the hardest part may begin after the contract is canceled.

This story was updated on November 1st to include comment from Flock Safety.