Flock ignores Minnesota city’s orders not to reinstall AI surveillance cameras — citizens complain after spotting two cameras despite the city canceling its contract

The city’s local government posted on Facebook to explain that the Police Department was made aware of a maintenance work order on September 17. Dayton responded the next day, stating the program had been put on hold and no work orders were to be completed. Flock went ahead and reinstalled the cameras anyway without authorization from the city.

Flock Safety is a national provider of AI-powered surveillance cameras, including automatic license plate readers (ALPRs).

Dayton’s city council had already voted to suspend the automatic license plate reader program and Flock cameras on August 25, following community concerns over privacy and data misuse.

Controversy over data and privacy

Flock’s cameras have been used for unjust purposes, such as a car reviewer mistakenly being pulled over because one of its cameras misread the tags. In another case, Flock’s chief information security officer falsely assured the Oshkosh City Council that Flock did not create a heat map of individual license plates, when it in fact does have a heat map feature in the Flock system.