Dec. 5, 2025

The community-driven movement to “DeFlock Olympia” has secured a significant win in the fight against AI-driven surveillance. On December 2, 2025, after weeks of sustained and growing public pressure, the Olympia City Council voted to temporarily suspend the city’s contract with Flock Safety and halt all operations of its automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera network. By the morning of December 3, cameras across the city had been covered with “hoods,” pending official removal. This step marks a suspension—not a permanent end—to the contract. Continued community pressure will be necessary to ensure the cameras are removed and never reinstalled.

This victory also marks a turning point in a broader effort. The DeFlock movement is also encouraging the city to evaluate the presence of privately operated Flock cameras installed at businesses such as Home Depot and Lowe’s. The group plans to advocate for a citywide policy discussion about banning this type of surveillance technology within Olympia, regardless of whether it is publicly or privately owned.

The need for regional solidarity remains critical. Communities in Shelton, Lacey, Tumwater, Tacoma, and Aberdeen are facing similar surveillance expansions. As long as Flock cameras operate in neighboring cities, the network can still track the movements of people in Olympia and throughout the South Sound. Many nearby police departments have weaker protections for ALPR data and may knowingly or unintentionally share information with federal agencies or hundreds of external networks. Olympia’s DeFlock movement encourages residents across the region to organize, collaborate, and support efforts to remove these systems everywhere they appear.

While Olympia’s suspension is a significant milestone, it is only the first stage in a longer campaign to permanently remove AI surveillance technology from the South Sound. Residents in Lacey, Tumwater, Shelton, or Aberdeen who would like support in hosting a DeFlock informational event can reach out at deflockoly@proton.me.

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Nearly 200 community members attended a counter-information rally outside Olympia City Hall on December 2 to demand this outcome. The rally combined research sharing, hot food, singing, and chanting as the City Council met inside to hear a presentation from the interim police chief. Olympia Police Department’s briefing promoted the supposed benefits of Flock’s system but also repeated several false or misleading claims. Community members countered these point-by-point with detailed, cited research.

Among OPD’s claims was the assertion that Flock data does not contain “personally identifiable information.” In reality, these cameras capture not only license plates and driving patterns, but bumper stickers, racks, and dents. According to Flock’s own website, the AI powered microphones are expanding their recognition of sounds. Investigative reporting shows Flock cameras and AI are trained to detect license plates, vehicles, and people, including clothing, and a leaked Flock patent mentions detecting “race” (404media). Recent reporting has also revealed that Flock is building a massive “people search” tool by linking ALPR data with large consumer data-broker datasets — a direction that demonstrates how easily this infrastructure could evolve into something far more sweeping and alarming than what is currently advertised.

OPD also stated that “Footage is owned by OPD” and that “Flock Safety cannot access, use, or sell Olympia’s data.” However, Flock stores all footage on its own infrastructure, including it’s cloud, hosted by Amazon Web Services which is known for its massive profiteering from contracts with the Department of Homeland Security (Mijente). Flock has previously acknowledged back-door access programs, regardless of local policy, and its contract explicitly allows the company to turn over data “if legally required,” contradicting OPD’s claims. The ACLU has further documented how Flock combines ALPR data with wider commercial networks, showing that it is far from a simple “local crime-fighting tool” and instead part of an expansive private surveillance marketplace (ACLU).

OPD has claimed that data collected in Olympia is not shared outside Washington state. However, as a council member in Gig Harbor recently pointed out, many Washington cities already share their ALPR data with numerous agencies across and beyond state lines: “You sent some information I think about the city of Puyallup … I believe they belong to 593 networks. So … if we share data with Puyallup what’s to keep Puyallup from putting that data all over 593 networks?” (ACLU) Gig Harbor ultimately rejected its Flock contract after council members raised concerns about potential ICE-related data sharing (Gig Harbor Now).

Public frustration with OPD’s presentation rose during the meeting, especially as the department moved into “success stories” while dismissing broader safety concerns. The crowd outside grew louder, prompting the mayor to clear the public from the room and continue the meeting behind closed doors. Residents were able to watch only through the Zoom stream, which remains publicly viewable. Despite labeling critics as “a small sliver” of the population and remarking that “Big Brother… it’s already here,” Mayor Payne’s cynical statements were contradicted by the large, diverse crowds of Olympians who have filled public comment at City Hall throughout the past month.

The halting of Flock’s operations is a direct result of this sustained and organized community response. While the cameras are currently inactive, the DeFlock movement emphasizes that this is just the beginning. Removing AI-driven surveillance from Olympia—and from every community in the South Sound—will require ongoing vigilance, continued organizing, and regional solidarity.

For resources or to organize a DeFlock info night in your community, contact deflockoly@proton.me.

Olympians Want AI Powered Surveillance Out of Our City!

On the evening of November 10th, over 150 community members packed shoulder to shoulder into a cafe, overflowing onto the side walk, and many standing outside the doors to hear about Flock Safety company’s AI-powered Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPRs). These cameras are tracking our community in Olympia and have been used by federal agencies like ICE to run thousands of searches in Washington without the authorization or knowledge of local law enforcement. The following week, dozens of community members took to city council to voice their concerns and express the urgency of ending Olympia Police Department’s (OPD) 2 year contract with Flock (that began in March of 2024 and costs $90,000) for 15 of these cameras. The message is resoundingly clear: Olympia says no to the horrors of AI-Powered surveillance!

The law enforcement agencies who use these products, such as OPD, falsely claim that this data is secure and that they have control over this information. The truth is this data frequently flows between government and private entities and is accessed through a variety of methods that are out of the department’s control. These are not just simple cameras, they are creating a “fingerprint” of our vehicles, collecting any identifiable data and storing it in a centralized database owned by Flock. This database is hacked, leaked, or accessed through backdoor channels regularly. As one community member voiced to city council: “This is not something that anyone wants. From a person with a career in software, Flock system is an operating system that is so outdated… it has more than 900 known vulnerabilities”.

Flock’s transparency portals do not give a full picture of who has access to their database. They are notoriously incomplete and misleading and allow law enforcement to underreport how far this data is being spread. OPD’s portal states that 88 agencies have access, but the actual number is unknown. To contextualize what this could mean take Boulder, Colorado as an example. Their portal lists a similar statistic of around 90 agencies with access. However, a public records request revealed that over 6,000 agencies were obtaining their data. The measures that Flock and their clients take towards transparency and security are a farse intended to appease and quell public outcry against their invasion of privacy. The ways that they are collecting and sharing data is deeply harmful to the public. Our safety is not their priority.

This isn’t something any of us can opt out of. As another concerned community member told city council, “I’m not comfortable being on cameras all the time, at work, on the streets, everywhere. I just don’t want it anymore!” The high quality cameras are located at the busiest intersections of our city, with the ability to record details not just about our vehicles but also our persons. Flock also contracts with Amazon’s Ring cameras, making the reach of their surveillance incredibly wide. All of that information and how it is used and shared is out of our control.

It is no surprise this power has been abused. ALPRs have been used to track people seeking reproductive care across state lines. Police departments have misused this data for both personal stalking as well as sharing the data to abusers for bribes. These are just a few of the countless instances of misuse reported so far. Even though the keep Washington Working Act (2019) bans local cops from helping immigration enforcement, it has been reported that Washington residents’ data from Flock ALPR cameras have been accessed by US Border Patrol thousands of times in 2025. UWCHR Director Angelina Godoy argues, “Flock’s unregulated surveillance technology leaves the door wide open for violations of our states restrictions on collaboration with federal immigration enforcement… The fact that local law enforcement agencies say that they did not know that their Flock systems had exposed Washington state residents to these risks only underscores the urgency of this issue”.

There are steps you can take to Get the Flock Out of Olympia!

Talk to your friends and neighbors about APLRs, voice your concerns to City Hall, and sign on to our open letter!

www.maglit.me/deflockoly