Earlier this year, Jon Miller finally had enough. He began posting signs in front of Flock cameras around town to warn people that mass surveillance had come to Denton. The signs read: "Flock Camera. Tracking you. Recording you. Reporting you."
The Denton resident's signs also included a QR code linking to an online petition he started, requesting that city leaders act to protect residents' privacy and civil liberties by removing all cameras from Flock Safety. The controversial Atlanta-based company has dozens of contracts with law enforcement agencies in North Texas.
Denton police control 10 fixed Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras at public rights of ways in areas bordered by Interstate 35E, Loop 288 and Mayhill and Spencer roads due to higher rates of property crimes like vehicle burglaries and thefts, according to staff.
Miller's Change.org petition, which had nearly 500 signatures as of Monday, says the use of Flock cameras circumvents the need for police to obtain warrants, bypasses constitutional rights "and sets a dangerous precedent for unchecked surveillance in our communities."
Miller isn't alone. A handful of community members have attended Denton City Council meetings to share their concerns about Flock cameras, and DeFlock Denton, a local activism website, estimates there are 61 Flock cameras in Denton.
"The difference between a private smartphone and mass surveillance is how easy it is for the government to access the data and use it against you, or for citizens to access it without warrants or permission," a resident told the Denton City Council last week. "You can opt out of having a smartphone, but you cannot opt out of Flock and mass surveillance."
Other Flock cameras in Denton are on private property or not under the control of Denton police, city staff said.
Flock does offer law enforcement the ability to request direct access to feeds from privately owned Flock cameras in neighborhoods and at schools and businesses.
In 2024, Denton police did access information from Flock's database that included information from privately owned Flock camera systems to locate stolen vehicles as well as fugitives wanted for aggravated kidnapping and continuous family violence.
Denton isn't the only North Texas city with Flock cameras and access to a nationwide database that Flock says has "10 billion additional plate reads per month to amplify the potential to collect vital evidence in otherwise dead-end investigations," according to the city's contract.
Nearby agencies that use Flock include Argyle, Aubrey, Bartonville, Carrollton, Hickory Creek, Highland Village, Krum, Little Elm, Lewisville, Northlake, Prosper, Roanoke and Trophy Club, according to a September 2024 presentation to City Council. The University of North Texas Police Department also uses it.
While police describe Flock as an invaluable crime-fighting tool, more than 50 cities nationwide, including Austin and San Marcos, have been ending their contracts with the company over civil liberty issues, data privacy and data sharing concerns.
Locally, Carrollton is the latest city where residents are calling on the city to end its partnership with Flock Safety through an online petition.
The American Civil Liberties Union reported that law enforcement officials have abused the Flock database system, such as using it to stalk people, while U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has also accessed it to find immigrants without warrants.
Other issues the ACLU reports include lack of transparency, oversight and regulation into how private surveillance companies collect, store and use people's data, as well as how to hold public and private actors accountable if they abuse it.
In a July blog post, Flock said the data collected belongs to the customers operating its systems and that the customers decide who has access. The default retention rate is 30 days, and "when the data reaches the end of its retention period or a customer chooses to remove it, it is deleted from the platform according to Flock's data handling practices."
Flock stressed that it doesn't sell customer data to third parties, use facial recognition or provide hidden "backdoor" access to its system.
In January 2025, Denton City Council members unanimously approved a three-year contract with Flock Safety, not to exceed $311,600 and with an option to renew for two additional one-year periods.
Denton police had brought it to the council in September 2024 after Flock had a recent change in pricing and was giving the city access to its database free of charge.
Police Lt. Chris Smith told the council then that Flock had changed its business model so that police "would still get free access to private communities like HOAs or private apartment complexes that put their own Flock Safety cameras up."
"But we would no longer receive access to any of the information generated by other law enforcement agencies," Smith said. "The cost for the department to keep that Flock database subscription active is roughly the same as deploying our own cameras, which is what we were asking to do."
Part of the contract agreement with Flock included that all data collected was city-owned, would only be retained for 30 days and couldn't be sold by Flock Safety.
However, the city did grant Flock "a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, worldwide license to use customer data and perform all acts as may be necessary for Flock to provide Flock Services to the customer," according to the contract.
Flock also has a "non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free right" to collect, analyze and anonymize customer data and customer-generated data and use it in the training of machine learning algorithms or distribute it to improve and enhance services for other development, diagnostic and corrective purposes as well as other Flock offerings.
Denton's 10 Flock ALPR cameras don't offer video livestreams but instead capture still images every time a car passes, according to staff. Those images are then uploaded automatically into the Flock nationwide database as a searchable history.
Flock Safety uses AI and machine learning algorithms to catalog the vehicle's make, model, color, license plate number, and even bumper stickers and scratches.
Kayla Herrod, the city's interim director of marketing and communication, said in an email last week that police officers must provide a case number, offense type and search reason before conducting a Flock search. Doing so allows the department to conduct random audits of searches and cross-reference case numbers.
Flock also offers an Audit Assistance Tool, which Herrod said helps agencies review system activity, find atypical search patterns and maintain a documented record of oversight within the Flock platform.
Denton police restrict audit searches to the administrator level and allow the public to review searches performed over the past 30 days on Flock's transparency dashboard.
As for Flock's "real-time alerting," Herrod said it must be manually activated for each entry and is exclusively enabled for license plates associated with issues such as a stolen plate or vehicle, missing or violent persons, a protection order, warrants, or a suspected gang member or terrorist.
Herrod said Denton police have developed ALPR policies and procedures for all officers to follow, and disciplinary action for violations can include up to indefinite suspension (termination) and, depending on the facts, potentially criminal prosecution.
In 2025, Denton police also updated configuration settings as they became available from Flock that Herrod said includes restricting who can enter a license plate number into a hot list that offers the real-time alert system.
Searches by department users for reasons of immigration enforcement or reproductive care are also prohibited, as is excluding "any local data from searches conducted by other jurisdictions for the purposes of immigration enforcement or reproductive care."
The city's contract with Flock expires on Jan. 13, 2029.
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