Los Angeles, CA

The Los Angeles Police Department allowed its three-year contract with Flock Safety to expire rather than renew it. LAPD Chief Information Officer Dean Gialamas cited serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights, particularly privacy and control of the data collected by the cameras, and a dispute over who owns and controls that data. As the third-largest police department in the country, LAPD's exit was among the most significant losses in Flock's roughly 80,000-camera national footprint.

What moved this decision

Civil liberties and privacy concerns over collected data
Dispute over ownership and control of the data Flock collects
Inspector general audit finding roughly one in three hot-list alerts were false
161 car owners investigated over wrongly flagged vehicles in a two-month period

What happened afterwards

A 98-page Los Angeles city inspector general audit found Flock readers flagged vehicles as stolen at a false rate of roughly one in three: over a two-month window, LAPD investigated 161 car owners whose vehicles Flock had wrongly identified as stolen. This is one of the few US jurisdictions to produce an official accuracy audit of a deployed ALPR system, and the error rate - not privacy alone - became central to the story. Flock publicly called the non-renewal a surprise and said it expected to clear up misconceptions. LAPD indicated any future ALPR deployment would require updated privacy, transparency and accountability policies before a new contract, leaving renegotiation open rather than foreclosed.

What we still don’t know

These are the records we would need to describe this decision completely. If you can help obtain them, or already have them, get in touch.

Sources differ on the expiration date, reporting July 11 and July 12, 2026; July 11 was the Saturday referenced
Camera count and contract value not disclosed
Whether Flock cameras continued recording after expiration