The lawsuit challenges whether governments can withhold public records by storing them with private vendors like Flock Safety, potentially setting a statewide precedent.

Civil liberties groups and digital rights advocates have long warned that Flock’s surveillance network, which relies on the broad collection and sharing of location data, poses a threat to individual privacy. If anything, the recent publicity over its burgeoning drone business will only intensify scrutiny of a vendor already under fire.

St. Paul could be the latest city to cancel a contract with Flock, the automatic license plate reader company that has come under scrutiny over privacy concerns, and after the Minnesota Star Tribune reported that the company’s license plate data was used during the federal immigration enforcement surge.

Flock’s surveillance cameras have already sparked outrage. WIRED reconstructed its next-generation AI system, already in use by some police, to confirm it goes much further than tracking license plates.

Oklahoma City police say an internal audit flagged one sergeant's inappropriate use of the Flock database, while a separate complaint led to corrective action against another officer.

Flock Safety is having a hard month. The surveillance technology company, which has sold more than 120,000 automated license plate reader cameras to some 6,000 police departments across the US, is up to its neck in cancelled contracts—at least 34 since the start of 2026—and public backlash.

When Flock license plate-reading cameras started popping up around the Navajo Nation, some people thought they were there to catch speeders.

West Lafayette police are investigating after a Flock camera was removed from its base just hours after local protests.