US Cities Report Problems Removing Flock Safety Licence-Plate Cameras After Contract Cancellations

Picture a surveillance camera bolted to a lamp post on a quiet suburban street. The local council has voted to end the contract. The police chief has sent the termination notice. And yet, weeks later, the camera is still there — still running.

That’s the situation reported in at least two US cities, according to The Verge, as disputes emerge over what happens when local authorities try to cancel their agreements with Flock Safety, one of America’s largest suppliers of automated licence-plate reader systems.

What Flock Safety’s Cameras Actually Do

Flock Safety makes automated licence-plate recognition cameras that record vehicle registration plates along with the time and location of each pass. Police forces and local councils across the United States use them to track vehicles linked to crimes, locate stolen cars, and build up a picture of movements in a given area.

The cameras are popular. But they also collect a significant amount of data on ordinary drivers who’ve done nothing wrong — and that’s made them controversial in communities weighing up the benefits against the privacy costs.

The Plymouth and Dayton Disputes

Plymouth, Minnesota, voted in September 2026 to terminate its Flock Safety contract. According to The Verge, the company did not initially acknowledge the city’s request. The cameras stayed in place for more than a month before Police Chief Eric Fadden stepped in and directed staff to physically disconnect them. Not a subtle situation.

Dayton, Minnesota, ran into similar trouble. The city notified Flock on 18 September 2026 that its programme was on hold and that no maintenance work orders should be completed. Despite that instruction, two cameras were reportedly reconnected without authorisation. Flock’s response to Dayton included confirmation that equipment removal could take up to 60 days after a contract ends.

Sixty days is a long time for surveillance hardware to remain operational on public streets after a city has asked for it to stop.

The Verge also reported a comparable dispute at Elgin Community College in Illinois, where cameras allegedly remained in place or were uncovered after the institution sought to cancel its contract.

The Wider Picture

These aren’t isolated complaints. The Verge reported that more US cities are cancelling their Flock contracts. The Los Angeles Police Department suspended its use of Flock cameras in July 2026 over concerns about the company’s handling of data — a striking move given the scale of LAPD operations.

The disputes point to a broader tension in how surveillance contracts are written and enforced. Ending a contract doesn’t automatically mean cameras come down, data gets deleted, or maintenance access gets revoked. Civil liberties groups argue that continued operation after a termination notice — even briefly — undermines the public’s ability to control what’s being collected about them and by whom.

Residents in affected communities have been left asking basic questions: is the camera on my street still recording? Who can access that footage? When will the data be deleted?

Andrew Smith, a Flock Safety spokesperson, said the company respected Plymouth’s decision and was working with the customer to remove the cameras. The company has not, based on available reporting, publicly addressed the Dayton reconnection incident in detail.

What the Contracts Say Matters

The disputes highlight something that often gets overlooked when public bodies sign up for surveillance technology: the exit terms. What exactly happens at the end of the contract? Who is responsible for physical removal? What’s the timeline? Who controls maintenance access in the interim?

These aren’t abstract legal questions. In Dayton’s case, the gap between what the city instructed and what actually happened on the ground suggests the contractual language — or its enforcement — may not have been tight enough.

But it’s also worth keeping the Flock Safety side in view. Removing physical infrastructure across dozens of sites takes time and resources. The company’s stated 60-day window may reflect genuine logistical constraints rather than deliberate delay. The full picture of what was agreed in each contract isn’t publicly available.

What Happens Next

The reported disputes are likely to increase scrutiny on how US municipalities draft and manage surveillance contracts. Legislators and city attorneys in states across the country may push for clearer termination clauses, mandatory removal timescales, and automatic data-deletion requirements.

Flock Safety, for its part, faces a reputational challenge. The company’s commercial model depends on trust from local governments. If councils believe that cancelling a contract is harder in practice than it looks on paper, that trust erodes — and so does the case for signing up in the first place.

What This Means for Kent Residents

No verified Flock Safety contracts involving Kent Police, Kent County Council, Medway Council, or NHS Kent and Medway ICB were identified, so there is no direct local impact to report here. However, any UK public body — including those in Kent — considering automated licence-plate recognition contracts should take note of these US disputes, above all when it comes to negotiating clear terms around equipment removal, data deletion, and maintenance access after a contract ends. UK data-protection law, overseen by the Information Commissioner’s Office, sets its own requirements around retention and processing, but the practical lessons from Plymouth and Dayton apply wherever surveillance hardware is deployed under a third-party contract.