Police departments replace Flock ALPR cameras with Axon systems
Several U.S. law-enforcement agencies that ended contracts with Flock for automatic license-plate readers are adopting comparable technology from Axon, a company that also supplies body-cameras and other police equipment.
Law-enforcement agencies across the United States are moving away from Flock’s automatic license-plate reader (ALPR) cameras after public criticism and reports of misuse. Instead of abandoning the technology, many departments are signing contracts with Axon, a firm that already provides body-cameras and other police hardware.
Axon, formerly known as Taser, offers ALPR devices that combine license-plate scanning with live video streaming. The company promotes its Axon Lightpost system, which can be attached to existing streetlights, and its AI-driven AxonFusus platform that aggregates data from multiple cameras into a single searchable database.
Flock recently announced changes intended to address concerns, such as reducing its default data-retention period from 30 days to seven days, with a maximum of one year. Axon’s default retention remains 30 days, and the company does not impose a statutory limit on storage, although state laws may apply.
"Many of our competitors do offer live video on their ALPR devices. We decided we will not. Every device we sell should do exactly what a community expects it to do," said Garrett Langley, CEO of Flock.
Civil-rights groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the American Civil Liberties Union, have warned that ALPR technology enables mass surveillance regardless of the vendor. The EFF calls for strict legal safeguards such as warrant requirements and mandatory data deletion, while the ACLU notes that replacing one vendor with another does not resolve underlying privacy concerns.