Automatic license plate readers log the movement of every vehicle they see, building a searchable record of daily life across an entire city. When Cleveland’s elected officials voted to stop that recording, the cameras apparently kept going.
That’s what unfolded after the Public Safety Committee voted 3–1 against renewing the city’s $250,000 annual contract with Flock Safety. The contract expired June 29. WOIO journalist Keith Langford reported that same day he was working to confirm the cameras remained operational despite the expiration.
When “No” Doesn’t Mean Off
Democratic accountability only works if the technology actually responds to the vote.
Flock Safety sells cloud-based automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras — devices that photograph passing vehicles, extract plate numbers, and transmit everything to Flock’s servers, where police can search records, set alerts, and share data across jurisdictions. Cleveland’s network covered roughly 100 cameras citywide.
Here’s what the committee weighed before voting 3–1 against renewal:
- Contract value: $250,000 per year
- Committee vote: 3–1 against renewal
- Contract expiration: June 29
- Cameras deployed: approximately 100
- Evidence presented by police: a handful of cases, including a 2024 murder investigation — which council members found insufficient to justify continuous citywide surveillance
Council members asked a reasonable question: show us proof these cameras actually reduce crime. Privacy advocates told News5 Cleveland there was “no compelling evidence, no data presented at all to show the presence of these Flock cameras… has reduced or prevented crime in any meaningful way.“ The committee said no thanks. No subsequent authorization was scheduled.
The cameras apparently stayed on regardless.
The Off Switch Flock Controls
Across multiple cities, terminating a Flock contract and actually shutting off surveillance have turned out to be two very different things.
Cleveland isn’t an outlier. The Record documented Flock cameras remaining active in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Eugene, Oregon after officials believed they had been deactivated. NPR separately reports that Santa Cruz, Flagstaff, and other cities terminated contracts since early 2025, partly after discovering data was being shared with U.S. Border Patrol beyond what local officials understood. Flock told NPR that clients have “exclusive” control over data sharing. Multiple cities’ experiences suggest the reality is more complicated.
The fine print explains a lot. The ACLU’s analysis of Flock’s updated terms reveals the company retains a “perpetual” license to use customer surveillance data even after a contract ends — meaning your city loses access to the data before Flock does. The updated terms also:
- mandate private arbitration under Georgia law
- make termination harder
- shift liability toward municipalities
Nearly 50 cities failed to renew Flock contracts in the prior year alone, according to the ACLU.
When a city council votes to end surveillance and the cameras keep rolling, the question stops being about technology. It becomes about who actually governs — elected officials, or the vendor whose contract just expired. That’s not a glitch in the system. Based on Flock’s own contract terms, it may be exactly how the system was designed to work.
