Ninety cities walked away from Flock Safety in August 2026 alone. That’s roughly three cancellations every single day — a fourfold jump over July, according to Secure Justice, an Oakland-based anti-surveillance advocacy group tracking departures. Since 2021, 214 cities and counties have ended their Flock contracts. The pace isn’t plateauing. It’s compressing. For broader context on how a surveillance app can quietly expand its reach, the pattern will feel familiar.
Why Cities Are Walking Away
The complaints driving departures are specific, documented, and stacking up fast.
The reasons communities cited for leaving aren’t abstract:
- Surveillance scope creeping beyond original agreements
- Unwanted data sharing with outside law enforcement agencies
- Contract costs that didn’t pencil out against results
- Documented police misuse of the system
Brian Hofer, Secure Justice’s executive director and a former 10-year chair of Oakland’s Privacy Advisory Commission, told Ars Technica the trend has “gone parabolic.” Consider what that looks like on the ground: a city council chamber packed with residents demanding answers about where their license plate data goes after it leaves the local police department. That scene played out dozens of times this summer.
The political opposition forming around Flock is genuinely unusual. Sen. Josh Hawley is investigating the company’s data collection and retention practices. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis publicly called Flock cameras “out of control” following misuse-related arrests, according to Ars Technica. That’s a rare cross-partisan coalition — civil liberties advocates and conservative governors landing on the same side of a surveillance debate.
Flock Says It’s Still Growing – But the Math Gets Complicated
Flock’s growth numbers are real, but they don’t tell the whole story.
Flock Safety isn’t collapsing. Spokesperson Courtney Terlecki told Ars Technica that new city partnerships outpaced nonrenewals roughly 10-to-1 in 2026, adding that public-safety technology “deserves public discussion and community engagement.” The company also cut its default data-retention window from 30 days to seven days, per a company blog post referenced by Ars Technica. That’s a concrete policy change worth acknowledging.
A growing customer base doesn’t neutralize accelerating churn, though. Think of it like a streaming service signing up subscribers in new markets while quietly bleeding them in established ones. The aggregate numbers look fine — until the trend lines cross.
Communities reviewing similar contracts will face a question that goes well beyond vendor choice: how much surveillance was quietly agreed to in procurement meetings, and whether residents were ever meaningfully consulted before the cameras went up. San Jose’s experience with a Flock problem illustrates exactly how that reckoning unfolds at the local level. This story isn’t really about one company’s hardware. It’s a stress test for how much surveillance the public will actually accept in exchange for public safety promises.
