Lafayette City Council voted 5-1 on Oct. 6 to approve a 2027 budget that would eliminate funding for the city’s Flock license plate cameras.
The vote followed public comment from more than a dozen residents and an ongoing resident campaign urging councilors to end the city’s contract with Flock, a company that runs a network of automatic license plate readers. Flock has faced mounting criticism and contract cancellations in cities across the country over privacy concerns, including concerns about federal immigration officials’ access to data collected by its cameras. The budget still needs to be finalized with a second appropriations vote on Oct. 20.
Flock cameras capture multiple images of a car each time one passes, recording license plates and other identifying information. A recent investigation found that Flock software also “explicitly detects people,” and that police use the database to search for images of people, despite the company’s repeated claims to the contrary. Flock data is stored in a database that other police departments can access, allowing officers to search records without first obtaining a warrant…