Oklahoma City Council renews Flock Safety contract

19 August 2026. [AI first draft. Verify every fact against the source before publishing.]

The Oklahoma City Council voted Tuesday to extend the city's contract with Flock Safety, an automated license plate reader vendor, by a margin of 5-3, with Ward 8 Councilman Mark Stonecipher absent. The vote came after hours of public comment from residents expressing privacy concerns about the mass collection of vehicle data. The council approved the renewal with amendments requiring Oklahoma City rather than Flock to control data sharing with federal agencies, reducing data retention from 30 days to 7 days, and ending automatic sharing on a nationwide platform used by participating agencies, though the police department said it could activate such sharing for significant incidents on a case-by-case basis.

Oklahoma City has maintained an active Flock contract since 2023. Police Chief Ron Bacy presented statistics stating the technology has recovered 1,280 vehicles, located 210 missing people, and aided in 60 murder cases. Council members voting in favor cited law enforcement benefits, with one noting personal experience of vehicle recovery. However, opponents raised concerns about data misuse and presented a records request showing that the police department does not publish internal use or transparency reports on Flock. In 2024 and 2025, an Oklahoma City officer was suspended for three days for using the Flock database for personal use across five months [verify: suspension duration and dates].

Residents from diverse backgrounds attended the meeting, including representatives from LGBTQ advocacy group Freedom Oklahoma and Young Americans for Liberty. Some called for return to traditional detective work and community-based leads. Council members voting against the renewal, including Ward 7 Councilman Camal Pennington and Ward 6 Councilwoman Jo Beth Hamon, said the amendments did not address their core concerns about the technology and the vendor. Hamon referenced cases in other cities, such as Evanston, Illinois, where Flock reportedly reinstalled devices after removal requests.

Residents can check their own city's council agendas and voting records to determine whether similar ALPR contract renewals are scheduled and request public records on police department data policies and personnel discipline related to any license plate reader systems in use.

Read the original reporting: KGOU – Oklahoma's NPR Source.