SURVEILLANCE DOES NOT MAKE US SAFER

Flock is a surveillance company that sells Automatic License Plate Readers (ALPR) and partners with Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) and law enforcement to target people during immigration raids and to investigate people who travel for abortion care. Dozens of cities across the nation have already taken a stand and canceled their Flock contracts – you have the power to get yours to do the same. We’ve compiled this resource to help you join the principled community of people fighting against surveillance, drawing upon winning strategies and resources from activists on the ground.

Take Urgent Action
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Neighborhood Resources
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Tell Lowe’s Home Improvement to Drop Flock

Lowe’s is one of Flock Safety’s biggest commercial customers. That makes anyone passing through a Lowe’s parking lot vulnerable to targeting by ICE, especially Black and brown people. But Lowe’s is already worried about how this partnership is making the company look bad – so with enough pressure we can get Lowe’s to drop Flock!

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FIGHT FLOCK IN YOUR COMMUNITY

People are taking action to stop Flock cameras from infiltrating their communities nationwide – and it’s working! Dozens of municipalities have voted against Flock contracts because people just like you decided to get involved. This toolkit will walk you through the process of organizing a campaign in your own backyard, with effective messaging, research resources, organizational letters, and sample petitions that pull from successful strategies from grassroots mobilizations across the country. Need more support to get started? Reach out to team@fightforthefuture.org – we’re here to help.

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AMAZON RING <> FLOCK

Just last year, Amazon Ring announced a partnership FLOCK making every doorbell and porch another tool of mass surveillance. That’s why we’ve created these doorhangers, an easy and gentle conversation starter for your neighborhood RING users. Feel free to distribute at your next neighborhood ICE watch meeting.

Download the Ring doorhanger print file

FLOCK IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD

Home Owners Associations (HOAs) have also entered into contracts with Flock Safety, putting entire neighborhoods at risk. You can use this sample letter to send a message to your local HOA or other local groups to ask them about the use of Flock in your community:

Dear {Insert: Home Owners Association, Neighborhood Watch, School Administrator, Parent and/or Teachers Association}:

As our community gears up and braces for the potential of ICE activity in our neighborhood, I write you to flag an important concern that can inadvertently make our community more vulnerable to ICE surveillance. Critical reporting from 404 Media and others have exposed Flock license plate reader technologies for their role in aiding in ICE immigration raids and criminalizing abortion. The company Flock frequently partners with community groups like ours and has contracts with over 100 public school systems nationally for these cameras in parking lots, street intersections, and buildings. I want to make sure that our {insert group name} does not partner with such a company, which would undermine our ability to protect our community in the event of an ICE takeover. Thank you for your time. I look forward to your response. Sincerely,

{Name}

END ALL ALPRs

Flock is just one popular brand of license plate reader. Even as cities cancel their contracts with Flock, some have pivoted to other license plate providers like Axon. That’s why it’s important to push back on all forms of this surveillance. Take action now to fight back against automated license plate readers! Sign the petition to tell your lawmakers: Don’t surveil our streets! Reject all ALPRs.

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FLOCK TOOLKIT

Flock provides tens of thousands of ALPRs to cities, police departments, businesses, and home owners associations across the country. The cameras in Flock’s network create a massive database that ICE, CBP, and local cops are using to map where you live, where you work, where your kids go to school, if you attend political protests, and every move you make when you drive your car. People in cities everywhere are fighting back against this dangerous attack on privacy and safety – join them by using this toolkit to shut down Flock in your town.

Launching a Campaign
Materials
Set Up a Call Tool or Petition
Resources

Launching a campaign: Step-by-step breakdown

Step 1: Info-gathering and research

Goal: Gather initial information about the Flock cameras in your area. Partner with local groups already engaged in fighting surveillance as well as city council members to raise questions and public scrutiny around your city’s Flock contract.

Many council members know very little about Flock (beyond what the company shares in its marketing materials); use this phase to build awareness of the dangers of ALPRs and the shady and undemocratic processes that give rise to Flock contracts.

Check out the “Resources” section for educational materials to use with city council members.

Suggested research questions:

  • What was the process for establishing the contract in your city? Who were the decision makers and who was consulted?
  • What was the process for vetting and assessing the technology for safety and privacy concerns before establishing the contract?
  • Specifics of the contract:
    • What data is collected?
    • Where is the data stored and for how long?
    • Who has access to the data? What are the rules related to data sharing with other towns, cities, state and federal agencies?
    • Who owns the data?
    • Does the system integrate facial recognition and/or AI systems?
    • What is the duration of the contract and what is the process for renewing it?
  • What are the possible civil liberty concerns created by this technology?

Methods for getting answers:

  • Connect with activists, journalists, direct service providers and university researchers engaged in issues of policing and discriminatory technology in your area to understand what research already exists. Make sure your efforts compliment and align with the priorities and goals of organizations representing targeted communities/groups.
  • Encourage city council members to contact the police department directly – sometimes police departments will be willing to provide responses to questions and information to council members over the phone or email. Council members can also request an informational meeting with police department representatives.
  • In addition to general online research, search the MuckRock database for existing documents that your police department has already made public in response to past public records requests related to surveillance technology.
  • Remember: You might not be able to find answers to all of the questions listed above, and you don’t need all the answers to start your campaign!

A note about public records requests: If you are interested in trying to obtain information from your police department through a public records request, consider using Muckrock. Fill out this form and MuckRock submits the request to the police department for you – and alerts you when you’ve received a response. (Fee: $20 for 4 requests). MuckRock has examples of requests in every state that can serve as a guide to writing your own public records request.

Step 2: Cultivate city council champions

Goal: Work with at least one city council member to clarify the best avenues for turning the cameras off and to champion the fight against license plate readers publicly.

Methods:

  • Set up educational and advocacy meetings with council members.
    • Frame the issue in alignment with council members’ key policy priorities. Check out the “Resources” section for talking points and other materials.
  • Engage key community partners – business owners, unions, local organizations, parents groups, school boards – in conversations with council members about fighting Flock, especially groups that compliment the council member’s priorities or policy interests.
    • Bring materials like a community coalition letter and fact sheet to meetings with lawmakers (see list below).
  • As you solidify your champion(s), set up meetings with them to discuss and map out the most effective and realistic avenues for turning the cameras off. These avenues could include a Mayoral executive order, using the “Contracts and Procurement” process (for example by allowing contracts to lapse), passing an ordinance or bill banning the technology, etc.

Step 3: Public campaigning

Goal: Once you and your champion(s) have identified the right avenue for turning the cameras off, your role is to help build public pressure on other key decision makers to make it happen – in most cases, this will be the mayor and the other members of the city council.

Methods:

  • Coalition building – use this coalition letter from Oakland as a template to start your own letter
  • Online petition (see sample text below)
  • Call tool that connects people to city council offices’ phone lines – Fight for the Future can help set this up (see below_
  • Public teach-in
  • Flyering/postering (see resources section below)
  • Public rally outside city council organized by community groups
  • Public hearing: city council members ask questions of police department representatives (and other decision makers) in a session open to the public.

Campaigning materials

Set up a call tool or petition

Call tools:

Driving calls to city council members’ offices or the mayor is one of the most effective ways to build necessary pressure and end your town’s Flock contract. Fight for the Future can set up an online page that allows community members to input their information and connect directly to their city council members’ office phone lines. Contact team@fightforthefuture.org to get a page set up!

Example of a call page: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/actions/no-funding-for-ice-surveillance-tech/

Petition to local lawmakers:

Use Action Network or Change.org to set up an online petition targeting your city council members or other key decision makers. Fight for the Future can help if you run into issues or questions setting up your page. Hosting an online petition also allows you to build a list of action takers in your community who can be contacted for future actions.

General petition language:

Automated license plate readers (ALPRs), including Flock cameras, allow cops and federal agents to continuously track the movements of anyone who drives a car, posing a serious threat to our privacy and civil liberties. Flock’s massive camera network database is accessible to 5,000 agencies nationwide––including ICE and the Trump administration––and has already been used to target and terrorize immigrants, protestors, and abortion-seekers. Rather than spending our tax dollars on dystopian and dangerous technology for police and ICE, lawmakers should be investing in resources that are proven to keep communities safe: jobs, housing, health services, and education. Lawmakers and public officials everywhere must join the leaders of over two dozen cities and towns across the country and immediately cancel all contracts with Flock.

Petition to city council members:

As your constituent, I urge you to do everything in your power to turn off the invasive and dystopian Flock Safety license plate cameras in our community. Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are dragnet surveillance tools that fuel abusive policing practices, giving ICE, CBP, and local police the ability to track people and repress dissent. Rather than spending taxpayer dollars on dangerous technology for police and ICE, we should be investing in resources that are proven to keep communities safe: jobs, housing, health services, education. I’m calling on you to join the leaders of over two dozen cities and towns across the country that have canceled their Flock contracts.

Sample email blast (to send to community members):

Subject line: Stop Flock surveillance in [YOUR CITY]!

Friend,

This is urgent – [CITY NAME] is trying to push through a huge new surveillance project in partnership with Flock, the creepy license plate scanning company that was recently exposed for sharing data with ICE.(1)

Flock contracts consolidate the police department’s existing surveillance network with private camera feeds – including doorbell cameras and Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) – into one massive privately-owned system. That could mean real-time Big Brother-style tracking of thousands of our community members with no warrant.(2)

On [DATE], our city council members will be voting on moving forward this dangerous proposal. They need to hear your voice in opposition loud and clear. Click here to contact your council member and stop Flock from turning our city into a surveillance nightmare.

If this partnership goes unchallenged, no one is safe. But our undocumented, Black, and Brown neighbors are especially at risk. Flock and many police departments across the country have already shared data with ICE and federal agencies amid their violent kidnapping campaigns – data that is being used to identify and target people.(3)

Our city has the responsibility to reject surveillance technology that endangers people and fuels Trump’s hateful agenda. Please take 2 minutes to contact your lawmakers now – it makes a world of a difference for our city.

Rather than spending our tax dollars on dystopian and dangerous technology for police and ICE, lawmakers should be investing in resources that are proven to keep communities safe: jobs, housing, health services, and education. We need public officials everywhere to join the leaders of over two dozen cities and towns across the country and immediately cancel all contracts with Flock.

Thank you for everything you do,
[NAME]

Footnotes:
1. Oak Park: https://www.oakpark.com/2025/08/28/state-says-flock-safety-broke-the-law/

2. DeFlock: https://deflock.org/what-is-an-alpr

3. 404 Media: https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-camera-network-data-shows/

Resources

Direct support with launching a campaign:

  • Ready to launch your campaign against ALPRs? Contact team@fightforthefuture.org so we can connect you with networks and likeminded organizers and activists across the country in order to exchange lessons and expertise.

Petitions to sign/share:

Toolkits from local & national campaigns

Resources for learning and organizing: