LAPD Drops Flock Safety Over Privacy Concerns
14 Jul 2026
The Los Angeles Police Department — the third-largest police department in the U.S. — is letting its three-year contract with surveillance company Flock Safety expire this Saturday, and will not renew it. LAPD's chief information officer, Dean Gialamas, said the decision stems from "serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data collected from cameras."
Flock, an Atlanta-based company, operates a network of at least 80,000 cameras across the U.S., primarily selling automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems to police departments.
What's driving the exit
LAPD's move follows a pattern. Several other cities — including Mountain View, California, and South Portland, Maine — have already stopped working with Flock, citing privacy worries and concerns that federal immigration officials could use the cameras to track people.
The report also documents a series of technical and security problems tied to Flock's systems:
- Researchers have identified documented cases of motorists being pulled over, detained, held at gunpoint, or jailed due to license plate reader false positives and errors.
- Security lapses have exposed live Flock camera feeds to outside parties — 404 Media reported being able to watch live footage from publicly exposed cameras.
- Many police user logins for Flock systems reportedly lack multi-factor authentication, raising the risk of unauthorized access.
- The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used a local police officer's password without their knowledge to search Flock data for a suspect.
Lawmakers have since urged federal consumer authorities to investigate Flock over its failure to implement safeguards preventing unauthorized access to its systems.
What's still unclear
The report leaves several open questions: it's not known what surveillance technology, if any, LAPD plans to use in Flock's place, nor whether immigration-tracking concerns — cited by other cities — played a role in LAPD's specific decision. Flock has not yet publicly responded to LAPD's decision or to the security and civil liberties concerns raised. The exact number of LAPD's Flock cameras and the contract's cost also weren't disclosed.
Why founders should care
This story is likely relevant to founders building in govtech, surveillance, security, or public-sector SaaS:
- Sales cycles may lengthen. A major municipal client dropping a well-known vendor suggests public-sector buyers could be applying more scrutiny to privacy and security claims before signing or renewing contracts — a trend that may increase due diligence timelines for similar startups.
- Compliance risk is rising, not falling. The pattern of cities exiting Flock contracts hints that government deals in surveillance and data-collection categories may carry more reputational and regulatory exposure than in the past.
- Security fundamentals matter more. The authentication gaps and exposed feeds cited here suggest municipal buyers may increasingly weigh data protection and access controls as heavily as functionality or price.
- There may be an opening for challengers. Smaller or newer vendors that build around auditability, privacy safeguards, and transparent data practices could find receptive buyers as departments reassess incumbents — though this remains an inference from the pattern rather than a confirmed market shift.
Sources agree on the core facts of LAPD's decision, but the report does not confirm whether immigration enforcement concerns specifically motivated LAPD, distinguishing it somewhat from other cities' stated reasons. Founders evaluating this space should watch for Flock's response and whether other major departments follow LAPD's lead.