Minnesota's largest Flock cancellation to date is also the clearest reminder that ending a vendor contract and ending automated plate reading are not the same decision.
Reported by a named outlet and not contradicted, but we have not obtained the underlying record. Specifics are presented as reported, not as established.
The Duluth Police Department notified Flock Safety on August 3, 2026 that it would not renew its contract, which expires September 7, 2026, ending a one-year trial of nine stationary cameras funded by a $30,000 grant from Minnesota's Auto Theft Prevention Program. Six of the nine cameras had been stolen or damaged since June. Duluth is the largest Minnesota community to end a Flock contract. It continues to operate roughly sixty vehicle-mounted license plate readers deployed since 2011, and has indicated it may consider stationary readers from other vendors. Separately, the Sherburne County Sheriff's Office removed its Flock cameras, with all of them down by the morning of August 12, 2026, ending a grant-funded trial that would have required county money to continue.
Take the win, then read the second paragraph. Duluth ended a contract with the vendor whose name is on every one of these fights, and that is real — it is the largest such decision in Minnesota so far, and organisers there earned it. But Duluth has not stopped reading license plates. It runs about sixty mobile readers on patrol cars and has said it may look at other stationary vendors. Austin, Texas is the standing example of why that distinction is the whole ballgame: it cancelled Flock in 2025 and kept running ALPR through a different supplier, which is why Austin does not qualify against the Verified Unsurveilled standard. The standard is written against capabilities rather than brand names for exactly this reason. There is also an uncomfortable fact in the Duluth record that we are not going to leave out: six of its nine cameras had been stolen or damaged since June, and the chief's stated concern was creating new crimes to investigate rather than solving old ones. Vandalism is not a civic-action strategy and this site does not treat it as one. It is, however, part of why this particular deployment ended, and a story that omitted it would be flattering rather than accurate.
The Duluth Police Department notified Flock Safety on August 3, 2026 that it would not renew its contract, which expires September 7, 2026.
The Duluth deployment was nine stationary cameras, funded by a $30,000 grant from Minnesota's Auto Theft Prevention Program.
Six of Duluth's nine Flock cameras had been stolen or damaged since June 2026.
Duluth Police Chief Mike Ceynowa said the goal had been to solve violent crimes and auto thefts without creating a situation where the department then had other crimes to investigate.
The Duluth Police Department continues to operate approximately sixty vehicle-mounted license plate readers, deployed since 2011, and has indicated it may consider stationary readers from other vendors.
The Sherburne County Sheriff's Office removed its Flock cameras, with all of them down by the morning of August 12, 2026, ending a grant-funded trial that would have required county funds to continue.
Duluth is the largest Minnesota community to end a Flock contract to date.
Reporting has described more than a dozen Minnesota communities as having moved away from Flock. Unsurveilled has not independently verified a statewide count and does not publish one. Our own Decision Record holds only what we have confirmed, which is fewer.
Ending this contract does not end automated plate reading in Duluth. The department's roughly sixty vehicle-mounted readers are a different deployment model — mobile rather than fixed, and generally producing a less complete picture of a given road — but they are license plate readers and they have been in service since 2011.
The Duluth Police Department notified Flock Safety on August 3, 2026 that it would not renew. The contract expires September 7, 2026.
The deployment was small and short: nine stationary cameras, a one-year trial, funded by a $30,000 grant from Minnesota’s Auto Theft Prevention Program. Continuing would have meant asking the city for money.
Nine days later, on August 12, the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office finished removing its own Flock cameras — also a grant-funded trial, also one that would have needed county funds to carry on.
Duluth is the largest Minnesota community to end a Flock contract so far.
Duluth has not stopped reading license plates.
The department operates roughly sixty vehicle-mounted readers, deployed since 2011, and Deputy Chief Nick Lukovsky’s framing was that the department wants to leverage responsible technologies for public safety — not that it is done with the technology. Reporting indicates Duluth may consider stationary readers from another vendor.
This is the pattern that Austin, Texas exists on this site to illustrate. Austin cancelled Flock in 2025 and kept running ALPR through a different supplier. Austin does not qualify against the Verified Unsurveilled standard, and the reason is written into criterion two: no vendor workaround. A municipality does not meet the standard by replacing one platform with another that does substantially the same thing.
We are not saying Duluth is doing that. Mobile readers on patrol cars are a genuinely different deployment model from a fixed grid — they follow officers rather than blanketing intersections, and they generally build a thinner picture of any given road. But they are license plate readers, they have been running for fifteen years, and nobody has told the public what the retention period is or who can search the data. That question is now the live one in Duluth, and it is on our list above.
Six of Duluth’s nine cameras had been stolen or damaged since June.
We are including that because it is in the record and because leaving it out would make this story more flattering than it is. Chief Mike Ceynowa’s stated concern was pointed: the goal was to solve violent crime and auto theft, “but not create a situation where we now had other crimes to investigate.”
Two things need saying at once, and they do not cancel out.
Unsurveilled does not endorse damaging cameras, and does not publish anything that helps anyone do it. We have said that about Apache Junction and we say it here. Property destruction is a crime, it exposes the person who does it to real consequences, and it hands every agency in the country a reason to talk about vandals instead of about warrants.
And the vandalism is part of why this deployment ended, which makes it part of the factual record of the decision. Reporting notes the cameras were solar-powered, mounted on aluminium poles, disassembled with common tools, and that their locations were posted publicly. That is a description of what happened, not an instruction, and the useful thing a reader can take from it is that a program can become operationally not worth running for reasons that have nothing to do with whether it was ever lawful.
The lawful route did more here anyway. Sherburne County’s cameras came down because a grant ran out and a county would have had to vote money to keep them. Nobody had to touch a pole.
If your city is celebrating a Flock cancellation, the follow-up question is the one Duluth just raised:
What license plate reading capability does this city still have, and under what policy?
Mobile readers, a regional database it can query, a neighbouring agency’s network, a different vendor’s fixed cameras — any of these can survive a cancellation that gets reported as the end of the program.
The Verified Unsurveilled comparison walks that question through, and the records request generator will produce the version to send.
Reported by a named outlet and not contradicted, but we have not obtained the underlying record. Specifics are presented as reported, not as established.
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Check what a cancellation near you actually ended
A cancelled contract is not always an ended capability. Ask whether hardware was removed, access disabled, collected data deleted, and whether a different vendor has since arrived.
Questions this story leaves open
This Unsurveilled record is licensed CC BY 4.0. Linked source material remains the property of its publishers. Spotted an error? Tell us — corrections are logged in public, not quietly edited away.
