Longmont council pauses sharing of Flock Safety data, directs staff to seek alternatives

Longmont 's City Council voted on Dec. 9, 2025 to pause external sharing of data collected by Flock Safety and to seek alternative ways to meet the city's traffic- and investigative-technology needs.

The amended direction, carried by a 5-1 vote, instructs the city manager to stop sharing Longmont's Flock data outside the city effective Dec. 10, decline any future expansions or renewals of Flock infrastructure, and return to council with options for replacement technologies and contract analyses by March 2026. The transcript records Council Member Christ (also shown as "Crist" in one vote annotation) as the lone dissenting vote.

Why it mattered: dozens of Longmont residents filled the public-comment period to criticize Flock and similar automatic license plate reader systems, arguing they are insecure, prone to error and allow warrantless, dragnet-style searches. Speakers pointed to published incidents in other jurisdictions, investigator audits, and concerns about immigration- or civil-rights-related uses of the data. "I urge this council to suspend all contracts with Flock Safety until the city can provide reasonable justification for their use," said Andrew Gentry, a software engineer who spoke during public comment.

What the city said: Public Safety staff described the technology, the department's contractual controls and the department's use cases. Assistant Chief Phil Petrowski said Longmont's contract states the agency retains title to its data and that transmissions are encrypted to AES-256 standards. Petrowski also described a "hot list" workflow (stolen-vehicle or warrant lists pushed to the system) and said that Longmont had narrowed sharing to Colorado agencies after auditing accesses. "A 100% of our data is customer owned, and it will never be sold," he said, while acknowledging that human misuse is a potential risk and that cross-jurisdictional sharing helps in some time-sensitive investigations.

Public-safety tradeoffs: Staff and several council members warned that removing access to regional Flock data would hamper some cross-jurisdictional investigations. Public Safety said Flock assists produced investigative leads over the past two years that the department reports led to arrests, recovery of firearms and missing-persons recoveries. The department contrasted the roughly $50,000 per year contract cost with the far higher ongoing cost of an additional officer.

Council action and next steps: The final motion was amended during debate. Instead of immediate termination, the council paused sharing Flock data outside Longmont effective Dec. 10, instructed staff not to pursue expansion or automatic renewal, and directed staff to return by March 2026 with alternatives, procurement options (RFI/RFP pathways), cost comparisons and legal/contract analyses. The motion allows limited exceptions for active investigations or legal obligations.

What this does not do: The city's direction applies to Flock systems under city control; the council does not have authority to remove privately owned Flock cameras on private property or at businesses. Staff noted there are privately owned cameras within city limits that would remain subject to private owners' decisions.

Council member reaction: Supporters said the council needed to regain local control and evaluate alternatives; opponents cautioned that public-safety outcomes and legal details required more time for review. Council Member Christ explained she would not support the motion after hearing staff's account of investigative value.

What's next: Staff will return with a report on contractual termination points, potential costs, procurement pathways and alternative vendors/technologies by the March 2026 target date. Meanwhile, data sharing outside the city was paused as directed by the council.