The Los Angeles Police Department has stopped using cameras made by a company called Flock Safety that automatically read and record license plates from passing cars. The department let its three-year contract with Flock expire on Saturday, July 12, 2026 TechCrunch.

Dean Gialamas, the LAPD's chief information officer, said the department is stopping Flock services "until data, privacy, security, and sharing concerns can be ironed out through a contractual relationship." He pointed to worries about how the collected information is handled and protected TechCrunch.

The LAPD is the third-largest police department in the United States. As one of Flock's biggest customers, it had been using these cameras across Los Angeles. Flock's network includes at least 80,000 of these license plate cameras spread across the country, used by thousands of local police departments, neighborhoods, and businesses TechCrunch.

The main reason the two sides could not reach a new deal came down to who owns the data. According to reporting before the contract ended, the LAPD, Flock, and other parties all wanted control over the license plate information and vehicle data collected by the cameras. Neither side could agree on who would ultimately hold and manage that information Los Angeles Times Yahoo News.

The LAPD now says it will look for new contract language specifically addressing how data should be stored and protected before it agrees to use Flock cameras again TechCrunch.

City councilmember Ysabel Jurado introduced a motion on May 29, 2026 asking the city to stop expanding Flock's use across Los Angeles Councilmember Jurado's office. Earlier, in March 2026, the LAPD's oversight commission held a public meeting where concerns about data management were discussed Los Angeles Times.

Flock Safety's spokesperson Holly Beilin said the company did not expect the contract to end. She said Flock believes it can address what she calls misunderstandings about how the cameras work TechCrunch.

Other cities have had similar concerns. Mountain View, California and South Portland, Maine both ended their contracts with Flock, worried that the company might share information with federal immigration authorities TechCrunch. In response, Flock introduced a setting in January 2026 that lets agencies completely block federal agencies from accessing the data. By February, the company was saying federal sharing was "turned off by default," meaning federal agencies could not use the system unless an agency specifically allowed it Flock Safety Flock Safety.

Those privacy controls did not resolve the LAPD's main concerns, which were different. The department's issues centered on ownership and management of the information itself — not just who could look at it. The LAPD wanted clarity about how long data would be stored, who could download or export it, and who would legally own the records once they left the department's own computers. These are the kinds of details that live in legal contracts rather than in the software settings Flock changed.

The deeper issue here reflects a pattern that has emerged nationwide as more police departments use license plate cameras. Flock owns and operates the infrastructure and the technology that analyzes the data, while police departments technically own the information collected on their streets. This creates an imbalance: the company controls much of the machinery, while the city has limited control over how that information gets used or stored.

Worth flagging: even if the LAPD stops using Flock, the cameras are not gone from the Los Angeles area. Smaller police departments and private neighborhoods in Southern California still operate Flock cameras that feed into the same shared database. LAPD detectives can still search regional data through those other agencies, even without their own Flock subscription.

What happens next depends on whether Flock and the LAPD can write new contract terms that address the department's data ownership concerns. Given how large this account is and Flock's stated willingness to work things out, a new agreement seems possible rather than a permanent split. For now, the LAPD's decision stands as a high-profile test case for how police departments and camera companies negotiate over who controls information. Other cities are watching to see how this plays out.