New Boss, Same as the old Boss!
Cities Are Ditching Flock Safety Cameras – Then Hiring Axon to Do the Same Job
Key Takeaways
- 53 cities dropped Flock Safety cameras only to install Axon plate readers as replacements.
- Flock scanned plates linked to alleged crimes less than 1% of the time, surveilling nearly everyone.
- State laws mandating short data retention offer the only protection surviving vendor swaps.
In city council chambers across the country, officials have celebrated the removal of Flock Safety cameras as a privacy victory. Within months, Axon installation crews often appear on the same poles, bolting in replacement plate readers. According to TechTimes, 53 cities have canceled Flock contracts, citing unauthorized federal data access, false alerts, and mass surveillance of innocent drivers. Many aren’t abandoning license plate readers altogether — they’re switching vendors. The surveillance footprint isn’t shrinking. It’s rebranding.
The LAPD’s own inspector general flagged alarming rates of
false stolen-vehicle alerts from Flock cameras — meaning officers were pulling over innocent people because an algorithm misread a plate.
Axon spent years partnering with Flock to feed plate data into its in-car systems. In early 2025, it ended that partnership and launched direct competitors: Axon Outpost, a pole-mounted camera, and
Axon Lightpole, a streetlight retrofit built with Ubicquia — the same smart-streetlight vendor Flock uses, according to Forbes. The pitch to cities is deliberate: similar capability, tighter contract terms, and seamless integration with existing body cams and the Evidence.com cloud platform.
https://www.gadgetreview.com/cities-are-ditching-flock-safety-cameras-then-hiring-axon-to-do-the-same-job