Flock
Friends and constituents,
I hope you’ve been well. Today’s newsletter features a topic that has been headline news across the country for weeks, yet has not seen much political response in Indianapolis, despite my best efforts.
Today we’re talking about surveillance technology, and especially Flock automatic cameras.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time on the video this week, so please watch it before continuing to read.
In the summer of 2025, an increasing number of constituents started reaching out to me with concerns about Flock Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) technology. At the time, Flock was already a $7.5 billion company but was not widely known or understood. Constituents were concerned about the fourth amendment implications of government surveillance, especially in a time when Donald Trump and Mike Braun routinely send weaponized immigration police to snatch people from the streets.
In June last year, after 404 Media reported that Flock, via local law enforcement agencies, had shared data with the federal Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP), I reached out to ask then-Chief Chris Bailey about whether it was possible that this could have happened in Indianapolis. Chief Bailey told me that he had spoken with the CEO of Flock had confirmed that Flock had no federal contracts.
I followed up with the chief and mentioned that this statement didn’t necessarily disprove or reassure anyone, since the claim made by 404 media was not that Flock directly interfaced with ICE or CBP, but that local law enforcement officers might offer to share data. I asked what IMPD could do to reassure my constituents that this wasn’t happening, and I asked if I could see a number of license plate reader uses and the stated reason for those lookups. This request was never granted.
In August, 404 Media reported that Flock had indeed had “pilot agreements” with federal law enforcement agencies during the time period I had asked about, I reached out to Chief Bailey again to ask him whether he thought it was a good idea to continue partnering with a company that had apparently lied or at least deceived him. He told me that he didn’t feel that the CEO had been deceptive, but encouraged me to speak directly to Flock staff to avoid any game of telephone or confusion moving forward.
I reached out to Kameron Simmons, VP of Government Affairs at Flock, to ask him directly about these concerns. Kam told me in writing that “Indianapolis PD - and only Indianapolis PD - determines who has access to it, and which other law enforcement agencies they choose to share data with. They can revoke sharing relationships with agencies at any time. Flock will not share it with any other agency - federal or local - without your Department’s express permission. We do not sell customer data. This commitment is enshrined in our contracts with customers.” He also mentioned that “With respect to the Chief’s conversations with our CEO on federal agency contracts, we engaged in limited pilot programs with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) earlier this year, to explore assisting those agencies in combating human trafficking and fentanyl distribution. Just like with any other law enforcement department - customers have complete control over their data, and could choose whether to share information with those agencies. We discovered law enforcement in states like Illinois, which have laws in place governing data sharing with federal agencies, had accepted sharing requests with CBP - so to help customers with compliance, we proactively paused those pilots nationally.”
I asked Kam why the 404 Media article had shown screenshots that seemed to imply that Indianapolis PD was interacting with federal agencies. He responded that “The screenshot you're seeing referenced in the 404 media article below is from the network audit of another unnamed agency (I can't confirm for sure just based on the reporting, but I suspect from an Illinois or Colorado-based law enforcement department). What that audit is reflecting are search records on a given day/time, showing searches run by CBP, Douglas County Georgia, Indianapolis PD, Lake Stevens Washington, etc. Essentially, that screenshot is just showing that a local law enforcement agency had a sharing relationship with Indianapolis PD, and also a sharing relationship with CBP - and both agencies happened to run searches on that day/time (causing them to appear next to each other in that agency's audit), not that IMPD had accepted a sharing request from Border Protection.”
I didn’t find this very reassuring, but did appreciate the information.
I agreed to meet on a video call to talk with Kam to better understand the technology. I took some rough notes here. Top recommendations that Kam/Flock shared with me were as follows:
Run routine audits, since audit logs are only helpful if agencies actually review them.
Add filters to prevent sharing data on immigration, gender-affirming care, women’s reproductive health, and other concerning “red state” issues.
Require case numbers to be entered for any and all searches
Delete all images from the system after 30 days
In November of last year, constituents brought up another concern about this technology: it was incredibly easy to hack, as documented once again by 404 Media. At the same time, more and more people reached out to me asking me to push back on what they considered a violation of their 4th Amendment rights against unreasonable searches and seizures.
As of January of 2026, I was heeding my constituents by actively working with Council staffers to begin pressing for a ban on ALPR technology from Flock. To ensure this was done carefully and with consideration for public safety concerns, I first asked for the contract that IMPD had with Flock, and the policy and procedure guides outlining how IMPD dictated the technology should be used.
The guide I was given was from August of 2023, and mentioned “All public safety camera program access and usage is electronically logged and subject to audit and inspection; Incident Analysis Center (IAC) supervisors will routinely audit the usage of these systems.” It also stated that ALPR data is retained for up to 180 days - far more than Flock’s recommendation of purging all data after 30 days.
IMPD told me I’d need to contact Flock for a copy of the contract. That seemed odd to me, but I reached out to Flock to ask for this. The contract was dated November 19, 2024, and showed a $6,000,000 investment in Flock cameras. The contract also stated in section 11.07 Disclosure of Footage, “ Subject to and during the Retention Period, Contractor may
access, use, preserve and/or disclose the Footage to law enforcement authorities,
government officials, and/or third parties, if legally required to do so or if Contractor has a
good faith belief that such access, use, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary
to comply with a legal process, enforce this Agreement, or detect, prevent or otherwise
address security, privacy, fraud or technical issues, or emergency situations.”
In other words, Flock would indeed share data with federal agencies if pressed.
The contract covered 275 Falcon Fixed License Plate Reader Cameras for use by IMPD, which had already all been installed prior to the contract’s start date. The cameras were each invoiced at $2,500 per year.
Next, I reached out to Chief Tanya Terry, who had taken over the leadership of IMPD after Chris Bailey took the job as Chief of Staff for Joe Hogsett. I asked for details to help me better understand the ways that IMPD officers were benefiting from the use of Flock technology, so I could better weigh the pros and cons of the policy changes my constituents were asking for.
A week after my email, I reached out again as I had not heard a response. Chief Terry wrote me back to say “I assure you Flock is helping solve crimes and keep our community safe. Pursuing a ban on Flock would undoubtedly hinder public safety efforts.” I responded to thank her for that subjective narrative but to ask once again for more detail and/or quantitative information that could better inform this policy conversation.
I never did receive any of this narrative or quantitative information. Instead, I began reaching out to contact legislators and municipal officials across the country to search for the best practices for this kind of technology. I reached out to Mayor Brandon Sakbun of Terre Haute to discuss his city’s transparency portal, and sought out advice from legislators across the country.
At long last, I decided that the best policy to pursue in the short term would be a local version of Austin, Texas’s TRUST (Transparent and Responsible Use of Surveillance Technology) Act. A fellow socialist in office, Councilman Mike Siegel, had pushed to end his city’s contracts with Flock in 2025. But then after the contract ended, he found that local police created data sharing agreements with municipalities and territories around the perimeter of Austin, and were still using surveillance technology actively despite the lack of a contract with Flock.
The TRUST Act was designed to be future-facing. Rather than reacting to existing technology and contracts after the fact, it set up a framework for good governance ahead of time. It’s pretty simple: whenever a department or agency within the city wants to deploy technology that collects data on residents, that department must first come before the City Council and explain the need for the technology, the controls that the tech will be subject to, and the data access and retention policy. This presentation is accompanied by a public hearing and a vote.
On June 17th, I submitted a local version of this act to be introduced to the Indianapolis-Marion County City-County Council. This meant that according to the formal published Council schedule, our General Counsel or staff would have plenty of time to draft the specific verbiage in order to prepare and introduce this proposal.
For reasons that have not been explained to me, our standard Council timeline has not been followed for this proposal. Instead, I have been told that Joe Hogsett’s Office of Corporate Counsel needed to review the proposal before it could be introduced, and Council staff has refused to share the most up-to-date draft or any questions or concerns about the proposal.
I will be direct: this delay constitutes an unacceptable silencing of the constituents of District 13 and a complete failure of Council staff to do their jobs.
And the implications of this delay have been extremely serious.
The Washington Post wrote a story about police officers abusing Flock cameras, highlighting an IMPD East District officer who had conducted nearly 3,800 searches for his wife and personal friends’ license plates over a ten-month period.
According to the Washington Post, Chief Terry acknowledged in an interview that until recently, the department had no regular practice of auditing officers’ searches - this despite my extended line of questioning and conversations with both her and the previous Chief about the need for this type of policy.
On August 21st, I asked Chief Terry to let the Council know what IMPD’s Flock policies and procedures have been over the last several years, including copies of the policies and procedures, and dates upon which they were updated. I also asked if the contract with Flock that I had been given earlier this year was still the most up-to-date contract. Deflock.Org, a website that tracks Flock cameras, shows that 662 cameras are in view in the county, with 96% of them being Flock branded. This is concerning, since the contract I saw just a few months ago showed that only 275 cameras were on contract with IMPD.
Chief Terry responded to me four days later to state that IMPD “learned of the officer’s misconduct prior to the reporter contacting us” and that the officer had been suspended without pay and recommended termination. She also pointed out her statement to the community and that she had made herself available to several media outlets to speak about the issue - I commend her for all of these true points.
But nine days later, I still do not have copies of the policies and procedures or copies of the contracts that I requested.
My ridealong earlier this month showed me that many of our officers and command staff within IMPD are truly dedicated public servants who work hard and deserve respect. The department is several hundred officers down from their full budgeted complement. Society puts far too much on the shoulders of law enforcement officers, and I absolutely want to provide them the resources they need to do their jobs.
But with great power comes great responsibility, and from everything I have seen, the Department has not been a good steward of the private data collected by Flock’s ALPR cameras. I am once again pushing to bring the Indianapolis TRUST Act for a vote this month, and will seek to use this framework in order to require much more stringent policies around the government’s data collection, retention, and access moving forward.
I wanted to share all of this background with you so that you could see what I was doing and why. I’m a civil libertarian, and though as a socialist I believe government can be a useful mechanism for accomplishing our collective goals, I do not trust the government to surveil and track the people.
What do you think about this issue? What privacy are you willing to give up in exchange for greater security? I work for you, and so I always want to know how you think I should proceed on this or any other issue.
As it’s already getting late, I will beg your pardon for my monthly log of activities being late this month. I’ll have it to you by next week’s updates.
In love and solidarity,
Jesse