Re: Continuation or Renewal of Flock Safety ALPR Services

I. Purpose

This memorandum responds to Flock Safety’s representations regarding the legality and safety of its automated license plate reader (“ALPR”) network, and identifies concrete legal, financial, and reputational risks that should be resolved before any renewal.

II. Flock’s Legal Assurances Overstate Two Narrow, Non-Final Rulings

Flock frequently cites Schmidt v. City of Norfolk and State v. Simonson as establishing ALPR’s constitutionality nationwide. Neither supports that claim.

• Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, No. 2:24CV621, 2026 WL 207513 (E.D. Va. Jan. 27, 2026), is a single district court’s summary judgment ruling, presently on appeal to the Fourth Circuit (No. 26-1227). The court limited its holding to Norfolk’s specific ~175-camera, 21-day-retention deployment and expressly warned that ALPR “could become too intrusive” as camera density increases — holding the system constitutional “today,” not permanently or generally.
• State v. Simonson, No. 40732-2-III, 2026 WL 242157 (Wash. Ct. App. Jan. 29, 2026), is unpublished and carries no precedential value. Its actual holding concerns a single photograph from a single camera; the panel expressly declined to extend that holding to “the Flock system as a whole.” The trial court below described the networked system as comparable to cell-tower location tracking requiring a warrant under Carpenter v. United States.
• The Supreme Court’s 2026 decision in Chatrie v. United States, 609 U.S. _, No. 25-112, reaffirmed that government reconstruction of an individual’s comprehensive movement history is a Fourth Amendment search, regardless of which private party initially collected the data. No court has yet ruled on Flock’s national, cross-jurisdictional lookup architecture, which operates at a scale and duration well beyond either Schmidt or Simonson.

A department relying on Flock’s characterization of “settled law” is relying on an overstatement of two narrow, appealable, fact-bound rulings.

III. Unauthorized Data Sharing Is a Documented, Recurring Pattern

Dayton, Ohio discovered more than 7,000 instances of its Flock data being accessed for immigration enforcement in violation of city policy, and physically disabled its own cameras before exiting its contract.
Multiple departments have found that Flock’s “National Lookup” and federal-sharing settings defaulted to on, exposing municipal data to the national network and federal agencies without the contracting department’s knowledge or consent.

The Los Angeles Police Department — the nation’s third-largest department — declined to renew its Flock contract in July 2026, its Chief Information Officer citing unresolved data ownership, sharing, and security concerns rather than cost.

More than 80 municipalities across over half the states have terminated Flock contracts since 2021, with the pace accelerating sharply through 2026.

IV. This Creates Direct Exposure for the Municipality, Not Just Flock

Public records liability. A department unable to fully account for who accessed its data, when, and why — because configuration is vendor-controlled — may be unable to satisfy public records obligations, inviting litigation and adverse fee awards.

Section 1983 exposure. If unauthorized third-party access causes constitutional injury to a resident, the municipality — not only Flock — may be named as the entity that deployed the surveillance and delegated data control without adequate contractual safeguards.
Shifting state law. Illinois, New Hampshire, Washington, and Virginia have enacted or are actively legislating ALPR-specific retention limits, warrant requirements, and use restrictions. A department locked into a multi-year contract may be unable to comply with new law without renegotiation, or may find itself in breach if use must be restricted.

Reputational and political risk independent of any ruling. The political cost of unauthorized federal data sharing and public records disputes has already proven sufficient to end large, high-profile contracts — LAPD, Dayton, Mountain View, and dozens of others — regardless of how the constitutional litigation resolves.

V. Questions Counsel Should Resolve Before Any Renewal

• Does the department retain sole, auditable control over every data-sharing toggle — including national lookup and any federal-agency access — defaulted to off unless affirmatively enabled?

• Can the department produce, on demand, a complete audit log of every external query against its data, including requesting agency and stated purpose?

• Does the contract permit exit without loss of the department’s own historical data or continued vendor retention after termination?

• Has counsel reviewed the contract against this state’s current and pending ALPR statutes?

• Is the department prepared to defend the position that its specific deployment is materially indistinguishable from Schmidt and Simonson, given both are narrow rulings tied to specific camera counts and retention windows that may not match this department’s actual configuration?

VI. Conclusion

Flock’s public position — that courts have “consistently” upheld ALPR — describes two narrow, non-final, fact-bound rulings, not a settled national rule. Independent of how that litigation resolves, the documented pattern of unauthorized data sharing, public records exposure, and resulting contract terminations by comparable departments presents concrete, near-term risk regardless of any eventual constitutional ruling. Renewal should be conditioned on resolution of the questions above, with independent legal review of the contract’s data-sharing and audit provisions before further commitment.

Prepared for internal policy discussion and legal review. This memorandum is an advocacy document assembled to identify risk factors and does not constitute a legal opinion; municipal counsel should independently verify all citations and confirm current case status before relying on this analysis in any formal proceeding.