Flock Off: Five Arizona Cities Drop Contracts, Pinal County Declines Renewal; Four More Restrict Use Or Investigate Misuse

Arizona’s retreat from Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader network has spread to five cities and Pinal County, while four other municipal police departments have suspended the system, restricted data sharing, tightened search controls or opened investigations into alleged misuse.

Chandler, Sierra Vista, South Tucson, Flagstaff and Sedona have each ended or declined to renew contracts with Flock. The Pinal County Sheriff’s Office is allowing its agreement to expire at the end of September. Surprise has suspended its use of automated license plate readers, Tempe has halted automatic data sharing, Apache Junction has imposed new supervisory controls, and Goodyear has referred a possible criminal violation involving the system to an outside police agency, according to a statewide accounting published by KTAR.

The Pinal County Board of Supervisors followed Teeple’s decision Wednesday with a 4-1 vote to issue a notice of non-renewal covering Flock’s placement of cameras in county rights-of-way. Sheriff Ross Teeple announced a week earlier that his office would allow its contract to expire, citing privacy and Fourth Amendment concerns. 

The decision applies to cameras controlled by the Sheriff’s Office and leaves separately operated systems in Maricopa, Casa Grande and other municipalities untouched. Officials have estimated that roughly 200 Flock cameras operate across the county, most under municipal agreements.

Teeple told KJZZ’s The Show that the contract required at least 45 days’ notice to prevent an automatic renewal and that he could not obtain answers to his questions before the deadline. He said his decision did not arise from any misuse by Pinal County deputies, whose access is governed by a detailed license plate reader policy. His concern centered on the information collected by a private company and its potential uses beyond a particular investigation. “Once a company starts compiling a database, I have concerns of … what that database is being used for,” Teeple said.

The sheriff also described the cameras as a valuable investigative tool. He said a deputy recently used the system to identify a suspect vehicle following a fatal incident on Hunt Highway in which an aggressive driver forced a woman into oncoming traffic. The search helped deputies take the suspect into custody.

Teeple has also credited license plate readers with helping resolve AMBER and Silver Alerts and supporting anti-smuggling investigations. He urged supervisors to consider polling residents before any future return to the technology, according to KTAR.

Teeple has raised questions about capabilities that could extend beyond license plate recognition, including facial recognition. Flock says its automated license plate reader product does not use facial recognition or identify drivers and passengers. The company says searches rely on license plates and visible vehicle characteristics.

Chandler became the latest Arizona city to leave Flock after an automated audit flagged activity that police officials said could not be explained by routine law-enforcement work. As the California Globe reported Wednesday, Police Chief Bryan Chapman blocked all department personnel from the system and opened an internal investigation. The city will not renew its agreement, and Flock will remove its 40 cameras. Chandler police said the system had assisted in more than 2,000 cases, including stolen-vehicle recoveries and searches for missing dementia patients.

The other four city departures occurred over the preceding 11 months. Sedona’s City Council voted unanimously on Sept. 9, 2025, to cancel its agreement and remove the cameras. Flagstaff’s council voted to end its contract on Dec. 16 after police had already withdrawn from national and statewide data-sharing networks, prohibited use for immigration enforcement and shortened the local retention period from 30 days to 14. South Tucson voted on Feb. 17, 2026, to terminate its agreement. Sierra Vista’s contract ended April 2. KTAR reported that Northern Arizona University, state agencies and private entities continue to operate cameras around Flagstaff despite the city’s departure.

The latest restrictions and investigations have unfolded alongside the contract cancellations. Surprise suspended its 28-camera system after a routine audit identified an anomaly, placing an officer on administrative leave pending an investigation. The city is reviewing additional safeguards for a program it has operated for more than two years, according to KTAR.

Goodyear placed an officer on administrative leave and restricted the officer’s access to department computers after a July audit uncovered activity that investigators considered a possible policy violation. The department later found information indicating a possible criminal violation and asked Glendale police to conduct an independent investigation. Goodyear operates 33 Flock cameras and has approximately 200 authorized users. Police Chief Brian Issitt said the department’s audit “identified activity that warranted further review, and we acted immediately,” according to FOX 10 Phoenix.

Tempe has kept its cameras in service while ending automatic sharing of its data with other law-enforcement agencies. The city launched a public transparency portal and plans to solicit new bids with penalties for vendor misuse of data. Tempe police require report numbers for searches and conduct monthly audits, which the department says have found no misuse. Outside agencies may still request information through an authorized process, KTAR reported.

Apache Junction tightened its controls after an internal investigation found that former officer Joshua McDaniels used the system to locate his wife during a personal dispute. McDaniels resigned after being placed on administrative leave; Police Chief Michael Pooley said he would have been terminated if he had remained. The department now requires supervisory approval for searches unrelated to an active case and reviews weekly audit reports through two employees. Pooley said the system has also helped solve cases and locate missing people, including a 13-year-old girl in June, according to KTAR and Arizona’s Family.

The Arizona pullback follows a similar decision in California. The Los Angeles Police Department allowed its three-year Flock agreement to expire in July while officials reviewed concerns about data storage, ownership and sharing. LAPD had used 138 pole-mounted cameras and left open the possibility of negotiating a new agreement with stronger protections. Flock said it supports oversight and was continuing discussions with the department, according to ABC7 Los Angeles.

California law limits state and local law-enforcement agencies to sharing automated license plate reader data with California public agencies. Attorney General Rob Bonta is pursuing a case against El Cajon over the police department’s alleged sharing of ALPR data with more than 100 out-of-state agencies. The state is seeking an order directing the city to stop the practice, according to the California Department of Justice.

Flock announced a series of nationwide changes Thursday as scrutiny of its network intensified. The Atlanta-based company says law-enforcement agencies use its cameras to find missing people, recover stolen vehicles and identify suspects. The system photographs passing vehicles and converts license plates, vehicle details, timestamps and locations into searchable data. Thousands of agencies in 49 states can use and share Flock data across jurisdictions, according to the Associated Press.

The company is changing its recommended default retention period from 30 days to seven and will offer an “Evidence Mode” allowing investigators to preserve selected records tied to active cases. Existing customers will keep locally approved retention periods unless they adopt the new recommendation. By the end of the year, Flock says it will require law-enforcement customers to use its Audit Assistance system, automatically suspend user access when activity meets criteria for abnormal behavior, and require case codes for searches. Emergency overrides will be flagged for review. New offense filters will let agencies decide which categories of outside searches may access their data, including the ability to block immigration-enforcement searches, according to Flock’s announcement.

Flock said the Chandler case demonstrated the purpose of its audit tools. In response to Chandler’s decision, the company said automated review brought the flagged activity to the department’s attention and allowed officials to investigate. The company described misuse as rare and said customer agencies own their data and control access and sharing. The Associated Press reported that more than 50 agencies or jurisdictions have canceled, suspended or rejected contracts or deactivated cameras since the beginning of 2026, based on a tracker maintained by the anti-surveillance group “DeFlock”.