OKLAHOMA CITY, OK – Rising fascism and militarization wait for no lapsed contract. Weeks after Oklahoma City’s agreement with Flock technically expired, its automated license plate readers were still doing exactly what they were installed to do: feeding a private company’s data-harvesting network directly into police hands. On August 5, Flock issued a press release touting its own role in helping OKCPD locate and arrest John Michael Chavez, booked on second-degree murder charges after Roxanne Mohler was struck and killed by a driver while riding a scooter on Northwest Expressway. The arrest affidavit confirms it: the Flock network found him. That a private surveillance firm can announce, unprompted, its own hand in an Oklahoma City arrest makes the relations of power here unmistakably clear.
Since the summer of 2023, Oklahoma City has been in an agreement with Flock to operate around 90 fixed-position automated license plate reader Falcon cameras for $270,000 a year. Oklahoma State Statute 47-7-606.1 lays out the use of ALPR data as the central mechanism for the Uninsured Vehicle Enforcement Program under the Compulsory Insurance Law. The key part of the statute reads: “Data collected or retained through the use of an automated license plate reader system shall not be used by any individual or agency for purposes other than enforcement of the Compulsory Insurance Law or as otherwise permitted by law.” As we will see, that final phrase, “otherwise permitted by law,” is doing a lot of heavy lifting on behalf of Flock, which, due to its national prominence and influence, can effectively act outside formal legal boundaries and structures.
Indeed, in OKC, the “narrow use” of Flock cameras is a legal fiction. Let’s begin with Flock’s Terms of Service, which any customer must agree to. The ToS define Customer Data as “all data and information captured by Flock Hardware on behalf of Customer through the Flock Services (e.g., images, audio, and/or video) and the metadata associated therewith.” Flock claims an “irrevocable and worldwide” ownership of Customer Data. Updates to the ToS in February 2026 removed any ban on Flock selling Customer Data and any limitations on what data is used to train Flock’s AI agents, while also making its ownership claim “perpetual,” meaning it controls all surveillance data collected in OKC and elsewhere even if the contract were canceled. According to these terms, any municipal ordinances or state laws requiring the destruction of data after so many days can only apply to copies owned by local law enforcement, not the original data owned and stored by Flock. The fact that OKCPD is integrated with Flock’s National Look-up system, providing 109 law enforcement agencies around the U.S. with access to local camera data, further erodes the efficacy of any municipal or state laws regarding data retention.
The problem runs deeper than license plate capture and retention alone. Flock is interested in throwing a much wider net, and Section 2.4 of the Master Agreement between Oklahoma City and the private surveillance firm provides for just this. According to the text, Flock may make “any upgrades to system or platform that it deems necessary or useful” with zero city consent required. They have been expanding the capabilities of their hardware since 2023, with features such as Vehicle Fingerprint and Free-Form AI Search, which enables law enforcement to more easily search for specific vehicles in its database without requiring a plate number. To do this, ALPRs log identifying characteristics of a vehicle like its make, model, dents, color, destination, and stickers, not just the license plate number. Flock offers an expanded suite of surveillance methods including “pan-tilt-zoom” Condor cameras, which follow people on foot; Drone-as-First-Responder Aerodome, which launches surveillance drones in response to 911 calls; and Flock Audio Detection, in which microphones are placed above busy city streets for real-time acoustic gunshot monitoring.
The case of Flock Audio Detection, formerly known as Raven, reveals the insidious nature of Flock’s expanding surveillance dragnet service. In October 2025, Flock deployed a new feature called “Distress Detection” through its audio monitoring devices. This allowed existing Flock hardware to pick up on people arguing or screaming, as well as noisy disruptions including car meet-ups and fireworks, opening the possibility for police to be dispatched to every loud interaction on the street. Sustained public outcry forced Flock to roll the program back in July 2026, with Flock claiming Distress Detection had only gone live in certain cities, but no hardware was removed.
Section 2.4 of the Master Agreement means Flock could have easily upgraded cameras in OKC to include these capabilities without any public notice or City Council vote. Distress Detection moved forward on already existing hardware, only taking a software update to begin monitoring street noise. There are currently no legal limitations on what upgrades Flock might deem “necessary or useful” for the growth of its surveillance services and profits, with the firm only falling back in the face of massive outcry. The narrow use of Flock cameras for the enforcement of compulsory vehicle insurance and criminal investigations provided by Oklahoma law is torn to shreds by Flock’s ability to unilaterally expand its surveillance capabilities.
The expiration of the 2025 contract with Flock and the pending renewal vote have focused attention on the issue of mass surveillance in OKC. Records requests by a local activist earlier this year led to the creation of deflockokc.com, and recently community activists have been organizing town halls, phone zaps, and signing up to speak at city council sessions to express their disapproval of the impending contract renewal. The official vote has been delayed three times for unclear reasons, with the final date for the renewal vote set for August 18, 2026. In response to mass pressure, the City Council is proposing a new amendment to its Flock contract.
First, the amendment stipulates that all searches of the database will be logged and tied to specific users, requiring them to state their reason for accessing the database, and promising disciplinary action for “inappropriate access.” Second, the amendment will require the database to return no results for certain queries like “immigration” or “abortion clinic.” These stipulations are better than nothing but do not touch the fundamental problems with the contract, like Section 2.4 of the Master Agreement or Flock’s Terms of Service. Third, the amendment requires OKCPD to share ALPR data only with approved partner agencies rather than Flock’s unified National Look-up system. This does not appear to be more than a change in language, since the police department already shares information with 109 approved partner agencies which remain undisclosed. Fourth, the amendment creates a 30-day data retention limit, although ACLU representatives pressed for a seven-day limit. Whether 30 days or seven, this would only affect OKCPD’s copies of ALPR data, doing nothing to touch the irrevocable and perpetual ownership Flock claims over Customer Data, which would remain available in its national network. Finally, the amendment requires City Council to approve any new ALPR cameras or future purchases of Flock equipment, which is notable in that this requirement didn’t already exist in the contract beforehand.
The final nail in the coffin for this lukewarm tinkering around the edges is the fact that the contractual expiration and renewal vote are all but irrelevant. The Master Agreement between the city and Flock includes a clause that reads, “This Agreement will automatically renew for successive renewal terms […] unless either Party gives the other Party notice of non-renewal at least thirty (30) days prior to the end of the then-current term.” This would explain why OKCPD could access the Flock camera system leading to the arrest of John Michael Chavez: the contract simply renewed itself automatically. In effect, the City Council vote is beside the point, because Flock has contracted itself into a permanent fixture of OKC.
The contract is clear. The cameras will remain up unless the City Council votes specifically to bring them down, and even then, hundreds of privately leased Flock cameras would remain. Flock and the law enforcement agencies using its platform have proven themselves time and again to be utterly untrustworthy. The fight against mass surveillance and the defense of our right to privacy must be carried forward until Flock, and all similar surveillance networks, take their cameras and get the hell out of OKC!
