Florida and Texas restrict Flock cameras amid privacy concerns

Florida orders highway camera removals as Texas halts funding

Florida and Texas are moving to limit their use of Flock surveillance technology after concerns about privacy, misuse and police access to tracking data. Florida’s Department of Transportation said it will stop using licence-plate readers on highways across the state, including Flock cameras, and has 30 days to remove them.

The Florida memo cited “concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes.” The move followed Governor Ron DeSantis’s remarks at a press conference last Wednesday, when he described licence-plate reading technology as “out of control.”

Texas took a related step last week, ordering state agencies to stop funding Flock cameras. Governor Greg Abbott’s office cited alleged abuse of the system, including the indictment of a Lufkin police officer on 100 felony counts connected with allegedly searching Flock’s database to track people without authorisation.

Concerns extend beyond plate recognition

Neither Abbott’s office nor the available reporting identified every Texas agency affected by the order. Local reporting indicated that Dallas could face broad consequences because hundreds of Flock cameras operate in the city.

The restrictions come as bipartisan concerns grow over civil liberties and the operation of networked surveillance systems. Reporting has raised cybersecurity issues, alleged instances of officers using database access to stalk former partners, and accuracy problems that have contributed to police stops and wrongful arrests.

Flock’s systems are also reported to be expanding beyond scanning licence plates to identifying and tracking people. The company has around 130,000 licence-plate readers deployed across the United States, making policy decisions by major states consequential for both public-sector users and communities covered by the cameras.

Local resistance and operational accountability

Community opposition has already led some municipalities to end contracts. The pattern echoes LAPD’s dispute over Flock privacy in showing how disputes over Flock deployments can persist after local authorities act, as Evanston, Cambridge and Eugene have said cameras were reinstalled or reactivated after their contracts ended.

Flock did not respond to a request for comment on whether it would allow Florida and Texas to remove cameras or whether it planned to reinstall or reactivate them.

For organisations considering connected camera networks, these state actions underline the need to define authorised access, audit database searches, set retention controls and establish clear removal procedures before a system is deployed.