The United States' third-largest police force has let its contract with Flock Safety expire. On July 11, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)—which, until recently, was one of Flock's largest government customers—walked away from their contract. They cited that it wasn't about cost; rather, they walked away due to data ownership. "This contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras," Dean Gialamas, the department's chief information officer, told ABC7 after the decision was made public. The LAPD will stay out, Gialamas said, until questions about data, privacy, security and sharing could be "ironed out through a contractual relationship."
FILE - The Los Angeles Police Department headquarters building is seen downtown Los Angeles, Friday, July 8, 2022. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
Flock's position on data has been that the data belongs to the agencies. "Our customers own the data, not Flock," the company's chief communications officer, Josh Thomas, told Government Technology. The LAPD is not the first entity to distance itself from this specific technology. Between August 2021 and May 2026, 82 Flock contracts were terminated across 28 states, according to reporting by the San Francisco Standard. Thirty-nine of those came in the first five months of 2026 alone. The cities of Mountain View, Calif., and South Portland, Maine, ditched their contracts, as did Bloomington, Ind.—which let its contract expire in March. Cleveland City Council is expected to vote this week on whether to keep its 100 cameras. In Suffolk, Va., an Air Force engineer faces 25 criminal counts for allegedly taking 13 of the cameras down with a saw. Jeffrey Sovern, 41, described by his defense attorney as an engineer and mechanic in the U.S. Air Force, has pleaded not guilty to 13 felony counts of destruction of property, six counts of petit larceny, and six counts of possession of burglary tools. Sovern is alleged to have spent six months working his way through the surveillance cameras in his city, taking them apart on their poles and even throwing some from an overpass onto Interstate 664, watching them shatter on the pavement below. He told a detective they violated the Fourth Amendment. A judge certified all charges in late June. Sovern told a detective the cameras were unconstitutional, according to testimony, while strangers have donated more than $15,000 to his defense fund.
