The Oklahoma City Council will vote whether to renew its contract with a controversial vendor of automated license plate readers that works with law enforcement agencies across the country.
Atlanta-based Flock Safety cameras use artificial intelligence to scan vehicles that pass by, uploading information such as plate numbers, model, color and unique features such as bumper stickers.
The city's contract with the firm has come under scrutiny from multiple councilmembers and local activist groups as tensions continue to rise under a federal immigration crackdown.
The Oklahoma City Police Department has said the technology is used to look for stolen vehicles, drivers with arrest warrants and missing people, but local attorneys, civil liberty and immigrant rights groups have said the technology incentivizes surveillance and collects sensitive data obtained without a warrant while sharing it with a variety of state and federal agencies.
Councilmembers will review the contract on Tuesday, August 4. A memo from City Manager Craig Freeman attached to the meeting agenda urges Oklahoma City Mayor David Holt and councilmembers to renew the $270,000 contract with Flock for Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) software and hardware through June 30, 2027.
The funding would be pulled from the police sales tax fund for special operations support and go toward maintaining the 90 active ALPR cameras operated under the OKCPD contract. According to DeFlock OKC, a local offshoot of national crowdsourcing data project DeFlock, there are an estimated 300 ALPR cameras in the OKC metro area.
Local police first began using Flock Safety cameras in March 2022 and further expanded their contract in July of 2023 to install more cameras throughout the city. Department officials have said they follow strict guidelines on where the cameras can be placed, when they can be used and how long the information collected from them can be stored.
OKCPD says the cameras have been pivotal in tracking down stolen cars and fleeing suspects, while reducing the number of pursuits. One example was after a 2025 mass shooting outside The Collective in Midtown, which involved a vehicle that had been reported stolen and was later found burned. Court records say an automated license plate readers played a role in the investigation.
At an April 30 town hall hosted by Ward 7 Councilmember Camal Pennington in Northeast Oklahoma City, OKCPD Chief Ron Bacy answered questions about the Flock Safety programs and addressed concerns with information sharing.
Bacy described the information gathered through ALPR technology as "basically a picture of a back of a car with the license plate. There's no other information."
"In order to get the registered owner's information the officer then has to access another database," he told the crowd.
Cities and agencies that maintain a Flock contract can allow one another access to their camera data. Further, if a department opts in to Flock's "national lookup" program, officers can search for a plate anywhere in the country where other departments and agencies have also opted in. The searches do not require a warrant.
Read more: OKC police to continue using Flock cameras despite concerns of federal agency misuse
"We don't share any information with our federal partners," Bacy said addressing growing concerns over what information local authorities share with federal agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He went on to say that the department does share information with nearby agencies such as Del City and Edmond because what happens in the metro area can easily cross jurisdictions.
Bacy also described a system of checks and balances requiring officers to give reasons for a search and internal audits that check usage, saying "Misuse of that can be criminal."
Across the country, city councils from Texas to Virginia have come under intense scrutiny when these contracts have come up for renewal in the past year.
Flock has misidentified suspects and vehicles, further raising concern with various civil liberty and advocacy groups, such as the American Civil Liberties Union, who say ALPR technology is creating a nationwide network of mass surveillance that can be weaponized and abused by law enforcement.
In July, the sheriff of Latimer County in southeast Oklahoma terminated his department's Flock agreement, citing constitutional privacy concerns.
Latimer County Sheriff Adam Woodruff posted a statement to social media after the decision on July 21 saying, "After carefully reviewing the use of Flock Safety, Axon and other automated license plate reader camera systems, I have made the decision that the Latimer County Sheriff's Office will not utilize this technology in Latimer County. While these systems have assisted some law enforcement agencies in solving crimes, they have also generated legitimate concerns across the country regarding privacy, data sharing, transparency, and the potential for misuse."
The statement continued, "I believe we can continue protecting our communities through proactive policing, strong partnerships with our citizens, and sound investigative work without creating a system that many residents feel could infringe on their privacy. The people of Latimer County deserve both security and freedom. As long as I have the honor of serving as your Sheriff, the Latimer County Sheriff's Office will not use Flock or other comparable camera systems in our county. I will continue to stand for public safety while protecting the constitutional rights and privacy of the citizens I was elected to serve."
As reported by nonprofit news oultet The Frontier last year, Tulsa's use of Flock cameras appears to conflict with Oklahoma law, which restricts the use of ALPRs to enforcing the state's car insurance requirement. And further, in September 2024, a McClain County judge ruled 'unequivocally' against the use of ALPR data as evidence in a criminal case.
The ACLU and local immigrant rights groups have also raised concern with the technology being used to aid in immigration enforcement, even in cases where the Flock contractor explicitly restricted sharing with federal immigration agencies.
For example, in Houston immigration agents were able to gain access to a school district's Flock data through out-of-state police departments the district shared data with.
On May 27, the ACLU of Oklahoma held an OKC townhall addressing growing community concerns about mass surveillance across the state and local Flock contracts. The presentation included draft letters that could be sent to various city councils and legislatures demanding an end to Flock contracts.
In attendance were OKC Councilmembers Pennington (Ward 7), James Cooper (Ward 2) and JoBeth Hamon (Ward 6), who expressed their own concerns over agency data-sharing and constituent privacy, saying they were in conversation with local authorities to address concerns.
In April, the Oklahoma City Council voted 7-2 to renew a police contract with controversial U.S.-based data analytics company LexisNexis, which has also come under scrutiny for its data-sharing practices, including allegations of illegally collecting personal data and selling it to third parties, including federal immigration authorities.
Continue reading: OKC council renews police data contract despite data sharing concerns
This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OKC City Council to vote on Flock contract renewal