Cities cancel Flock Safety contracts, but the surveillance cameras stay up

Canceling a surveillance contract ought to be simpler than signing one. According to The Verge, a growing number of US municipalities are finding the opposite: Flock Safety, a vendor of license plate recognition cameras, has allegedly ignored or slow-walked requests to remove its equipment after cities terminated their contracts, and in at least one case put cameras back into service after being told to stop.

A police chief pulled the plugs himself

In Plymouth, Minnesota, the city council voted in September to end its contract with Flock. The Verge reports that the city heard nothing back, and for more than a month the cameras stayed up. Police Chief Eric Fadden eventually took matters into his own hands, telling The Drive that after more than a week of silence he ordered staff to disconnect the cameras' power cords to be certain the devices were no longer functioning or recording plates.

Dayton says cameras were reconnected anyway

Roughly 20 miles away in Dayton, Minnesota, the process at least got an acknowledgment: Flock confirmed the request and said removing the equipment could take up to 60 days, according to The Verge. But the city says the company then reconnected two cameras within city limits without authorization, despite a specific request from local police that the work order not be completed.

Dayton's local government laid out the timeline on Facebook. On September 17, 2026, the police department became aware of a Flock maintenance work order. The following day the city told Flock the program was on hold and that no work orders were to be completed. The city says that direction was not followed, and a camera was placed back into service without authorization.

Not an isolated case

The Minnesota disputes follow a similar ordeal in Illinois. There, according to The Verge, Flock refused to take down its cameras at Elgin Community College and even uncovered them after the administration sought to cancel its contract. The company did not immediately respond to The Verge's request for comment.

Why it matters

Flock's plate-reading cameras capture data on passing vehicles, which makes public consent and oversight central to their deployment. When a city council votes to end a surveillance program and the hardware keeps operating anyway, or gets switched back on over local objections, the question shifts from whether the tool works to who actually controls it. For civic tech buyers, the reported episodes are a reminder that exit terms deserve as much scrutiny as features: firm removal deadlines, guaranteed data deletion, and clarity about who can physically access and re-enable the hardware. Cities weighing these systems may want to negotiate the way out before signing on the way in.