After months of community concern, the Flagstaff City Council unanimously voted to cancel its contract with Flock Safety, discontinuing its automated license plate reader system.
Flagstaff police summarized policy guardrails it had put in place to ease community concerns over the technology. But continued public pushback over fears of data misuse and unanswered questions led to the council’s no vote Tuesday.
Resident Jan Carlile spoke during public comment.
“I admire and respect the efforts of our police department to try to do the very best they can to protect our safety, and until the advancement of AI and frankly the troubling efforts by our current national administration, both of those can potentially very seriously undercut our privacy as citizens," Carlile said. "I would not likely have been concerned about the use of cameras as a tool for public safety [in the past], but we are in a new era.”
Many residents questioned if Flock Safety had reduced local crime since its 2024 installation.
Ahead of the unanimous vote Tuesday, police Chief Sean Connolly said he couldn’t give a definitive answer.
“We sit here today with a 12% reduction in violent crime and a reduction of almost 4% in property. I’m not attributing that solely to this technology, but it’s one piece of the wheel," Connolly said.
Flock Safety says it captures 20 billion license plates every month in 5,000 cities across 49 states.
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