In a rare display of bipartisan agreement, two Arizona towns with opposing political leanings switched off their Flock automated license plate reader systems on the same day, while two senators at opposite ends of the ideological spectrum launched separate actions against the surveillance company in Washington.
Tempe, a Democratic-leaning city, and Cave Creek, a Republican-leaning town north of Phoenix, both ended their use of Flock cameras on Wednesday. Tempe Mayor Corey Woods said the city’s own monthly audits found no misuse, but the risk was still too great. “These cameras have helped our police officers do their jobs, and we don’t discount that,” Woods said. “But the risk of misuse is too great. We have to be able to provide public safety in a way that maintains the trust of our community.”
Tempe Councilmember Bobby Nichols framed the decision as a matter of legal principle, stating that any law enforcement tool must not pose a risk of infringing on residents’ civil liberties. The city’s contract with Flock was worth $80,000. The cameras remain in place until Flock removes them, but they have stopped collecting data. Previously collected data is stored temporarily and deleted automatically unless tied to an open case. Tempe had already cut off automatic data sharing with other agencies earlier in August.
Cave Creek’s decision came three hours after Tempe’s. Town officials cited privacy concerns, cases of misuse elsewhere, and the theft of one of their own cameras from an intersection. The town’s core objection was structural: Flock’s networked design allows outside law enforcement agencies to search data collected locally, and officials concluded there was no way to guarantee residents’ privacy once their information left Cave Creek’s jurisdiction. Public works crews removed the remaining cameras for safekeeping after the theft.
The two towns became at least the ninth and tenth Arizona municipalities to drop or restrict Flock in the past year, following Chandler, Surprise, Pinal County, Sedona, Flagstaff, Sierra Vista, South Tucson, and Apache Junction. Tempe leans Democratic with roughly 63% of voters backing Democrats, while Cave Creek is a small, affluent Republican-leaning town.
In Washington, Senator Josh Hawley, a Missouri Republican who chairs the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism, sent a letter to Flock CEO Garrett Langley announcing an investigation into the company’s “collection, retention, and dissemination” of data. The letter argued that Flock has built an “unprecedented national surveillance network” of more than 120,000 cameras across 49 states, scanning more than 20 billion vehicles a month, and that “Congress never authorized the network your industry has built.” Hawley gave the company until Sept. 8 to turn over documents.
Hours later, independent Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders posted a statement on X describing Flock as part of a system that risks tipping the country into totalitarianism. He pointed to newer versions of the technology that can match images of people and vehicles against databases of phone numbers, relatives, and court records. “We must come together to stop Flock and AI mass surveillance,” Sanders wrote. “That is why I will soon be introducing legislation to do just that.”
A Flock spokesperson defended the technology, saying police departments across the country solve countless serious crimes with it. “When a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes, locate suspects, and find missing people is removed, public safety moves backward,” the spokesperson said. The company added that misuse is unacceptable and that every search is logged and reviewed through its Audit Assistance tool. The company said it intends to cooperate with Hawley’s investigation.
Flock says its cameras have helped close roughly a million police investigations and locate about 10,000 missing people over the past year. The company’s rapid expansion has drawn increasing scrutiny, and the convergence of actions from both ends of the political spectrum marks a notable shift in the surveillance debate.