Hundreds urge Eugene council to halt Flock surveillance contract; work session set

Dozens of residents urged the Eugene City Council on Monday to suspend the city's use of the Flock National Surveillance Network and cancel the contract that allows Flock to collect and store license-plate and camera data across Eugene.

Speakers at the council's public-comment period raised cybersecurity flaws, examples of misuse in other jurisdictions, frequent internal searches of the system and the effect broad, continuous collection could have on immigrants, people seeking reproductive or gender-affirming care, unhoused residents and people with disabilities.

The concerns were threaded through a long public-comment period in which multiple speakers said the only reliable way to protect people from harm is to stop collecting the data. "The only way to protect this information is to not collect it in the first place," said Rick Osgood, a privacy advocate and security professional.

Why it matters: Residents who testified said Flock's data is a permanent, searchable record of movement that can be used retroactively. Commenters cited reported…