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Collegedale, Tenn. — May 7, 2026 — City crews have covered the former Flock Safety license-plate readers with opaque shrouds after officials said they could not guarantee the cameras were no longer scanning cars. The move is a temporary safeguard, not a full solution, as the city reviews what to do with the hardware.
Officials emphasized that there was no immediate evidence any camera had captured data after the contract ended. They also acknowledged, however, that no one at City Hall had verified each unit was remotely deactivated before the agreement lapsed.
"Until we know exactly what these cameras are capable of doing, they're going to be covered," a city spokesperson said Thursday. "This isn't a statement that Flock did something wrong. It's a statement that we don't have the level of certainty we want."
Collegedale began using Flock Safety’s automated license plate readers several years ago after the police department said the devices would help recover stolen vehicles and investigate property crimes. The solar-powered cameras mount on poles and use computer vision to read plates. When a plate matches a vehicle tied to an alert, the system notifies police.
The city’s contract has now ended, but the cameras were still attached to city-owned poles. That created a practical problem: the city did not want the devices operating without a clear legal and public-policy framework.
Flock Safety, based in Atlanta, has said its cameras do not operate without an active subscription. City officials said they are not willing to rely on that assurance alone. The covers block the lenses, making it physically impossible for the former cameras to scan new plates.
The debate in Collegedale is part of a larger national conversation about license-plate surveillance. Automated plate readers do not capture faces or record continuous video in the way body cameras do. But they do create a searchable record of where every passing vehicle has been.
That data can reveal where a person lives, works, and spends time. Civil liberties groups, including the ACLU, have long urged local governments to limit how long plate scans are kept and to require clear rules on who can search them.
Collegedale never passed a local ordinance governing ALPR use. City code does not address data retention, auditing, or outside access to plate records. The City Council may now have to build those rules before any future camera program can be considered.
“Covering the cameras is the right stopgap, but it isn’t a long-term privacy answer,” said a research attorney who studies policing technology and requested not to be named. “If the city has a relationship with a surveillance vendor, the city has the responsibility to make sure that removed systems are truly decommissioned.”
The city attorney’s office is reviewing the contract to determine whether Flock must collect the cameras at its own expense or whether Collegedale can return them under the original agreement. A resolution to formally decommission the system and authorize removal is expected to be on the City Council agenda for May 19.
According to a draft administrative memo released Thursday, no city employee is allowed to remove the covers without written authorization from the city administrator. Public works staff will inspect the covers periodically.
Opinion inside Collegedale is divided. Some residents have asked the city for weeks to remove the cameras entirely, saying they never agreed to have their vehicles logged every time they drive to the store. Others say the cameras helped police investigate break-ins and that covering the devices is an overreaction.
At an April council meeting, one resident called the Flock program a “surveillance tax” and demanded an independent audit of the data already collected. Another speaker argued that license-plate readers are similar to traffic cameras that cities have used for decades.
Council members took no action that night. They said they wanted to wait for the legal review before deciding whether to keep, remove, or replace the system.
Flock Safety has pushed back against the idea that its products are general surveillance tools. The company says it does not use facial recognition, biometric matching, or continuous video monitoring. Its cameras read license plates and can be set to keep data for 30 days or longer, depending on agency preferences.
Critics say a license plate is still enough to identify someone. They also point out that plate data can be shared through Flock’s network, which law enforcement agencies across multiple states use. A plate read in one town can be checked against records held in another jurisdiction.
That network model is part of why the Collegedale decision has drawn attention beyond Hamilton County. The city’s quick move to cover the cameras could become an example for other small governments trying to exit ALPR contracts cleanly.
Covering the cameras stops new scans, but it does not erase existing records. Residents and privacy advocates have asked whether Flock and the Collegedale Police Department have already deleted old data, who has accessed it, and whether the company can be required to purge it as part of the contract termination.
The draft data-retention ordinance expected before the council would require all plate records to be deleted within 30 days unless a court order says otherwise. The ordinance was prepared by the city’s technology advisory committee, which was formed earlier this year.
City officials said Flock has been told not to remotely activate any hardware that is still mounted. A spokesperson for the company did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
For now, the cameras remain covered. The May 19 council meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. at Collegedale City Hall. Residents can attend in person or submit comments online.
The council is expected to take a final vote on whether to formally end the Flock relationship and ship the hardware back to the company. If the resolution passes, city crews will work with Flock to schedule removal.
“These are not easy decisions because the technology is evolving faster than local laws,” the city spokesperson said. “What we can control is the process, and the process starts with transparency.”
City officials said no new ALPR contracts are under consideration. Any future camera system would have to go through the same public review before installation.
