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Residents urge council to cancel Flock Safety contract, cite outside-agency searches and privacy risks
Summary
An extended public-comment period focused on the city's contract with Flock Safety ALPR cameras: multiple residents alleged unauthorized outside-agency searches, immigrant-tracking use, and data-security concerns and urged council to terminate the contract or strengthen controls; council did not act on the request at the meeting.
Dozens of residents used the public-comment period May 26 to press Shaker Heights officials to cancel the city's contract with Flock Safety, the automated-license-plate-reader (ALPR) vendor. Speakers cited examples from other cities, audit-log findings from local records requests and broad privacy concerns about a private company maintaining a nationwide dataset.
Ethan Corona called on council to "cancel our city's contract with the company Flock Safety," saying the cameras enable tracking of where residents go and argued private firms should not record and track residents. Multiple speakers presented findings from records requests and public reporting. One resident said the city had recorded 617 local searches over a two-month span and that outside agencies had conducted searches relating to immigration; another said audit logs showed thousands of searches and flagged 273 immigration-related queries for certain months. "These cameras make all of us less safe instead of more safe," one speaker said.
Speakers also cited examples in other jurisdictions where Flock data was reportedly used for immigration searches or where vendors installed cameras despite canceled contracts. Several speakers tied their concern to civil-liberties and equity issues, including possible stalking and surveillance of protesters. City staff and council did not vote or respond with policy changes at the meeting; residents asked for reconsideration or immediate termination of the contract and signaled plans to continue organizing.
The council did not take formal action on Flock during the meeting; staff noted prior committee discussions and recent changes to search-term policy but took no immediate vote.
