Flock Safety to cut about 18% of staff after statewide pushback

The Flock Safety layoffs affect about 270 of the company’s roughly 1,500 employees, or about 18% of staff. The Atlanta-based company hasn’t publicly confirmed the cuts.

They follow a voluntary buyout program Flock announced in September. Staff had until Oct. 2 to apply, and Flock described the package as its most generous ever, roughly double earlier severance offers. Some employees were reportedly offered tens of thousands of dollars, several months of health coverage and two years to exercise stock options. Accepted workers were told they’d mostly leave by Oct. 29. It isn’t clear how many of the 270 departures are people who took the buyout.

Flock CEO Garrett Langley has said the biggest damage from the backlash has been to internal morale, and asked why people are so angry about things the company has been doing for nine years.

Flock has lost contracts across the country this year. One advocacy group counted 93 city and county governments that cut ties with the company in August alone, and roughly three times as many local governments have dropped Flock in 2026 as in the previous five years combined.

The drops keep coming. The Los Angeles Police Department declined to renew its contract. In Missouri, the Excelsior Springs City Council voted unanimously in October to end its agreement, after Flock cameras were found damaged across Clay and Platte counties. A wave of vandalism against the cameras has also pushed up Flock’s costs.

The worries driving this include reports of officers allegedly misusing Flock searches to track former partners and colleagues, wide sharing of access between agencies, and how much information the cameras capture. One national poll found 47% of Americans oppose Flock cameras in their community, while 38% support them.

What makes Flock’s problem unusual is that criticism comes from both parties, even though the cameras are pitched as a crime-fighting tool.

• Florida: Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis banned Flock from state highways, saying he doesn’t want the state to become a surveillance state.
• Texas: Republican Gov. Greg Abbott cut the company off from state funding.
• Pennsylvania: Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has said he is open to legislation, including a possible ban. State police and the transportation department don’t own Flock cameras and won’t allow them on state property.
• Missouri: Republican Sen. Josh Hawley invited the heads of license plate reader companies to testify before Congress, warning that people will have no privacy if cameras watch them constantly.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer also wrote to Langley in October, asking Flock to erase personal information unconnected to any crime and to disclose whether its network has been accessed by federal agencies, with an Oct. 16 deadline. No public reply has been reported.

Lawmakers are now writing rules, and the proposals vary widely.

On the left, a group including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sens. Jeff Merkley and Bernie Sanders filed the Ban Flock Act on Oct. 2. The bill would bar federal agencies from the technology and the data it collects, cut off federal grant money to local governments that hold plate reader contracts, and give people the right to sue over misuse.

From the other side, Rep. Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican, introduced a bill requiring a probable-cause warrant for most plate reader searches and deletion of records within 24 hours, with exceptions for emergencies and court orders. It would ban searches based on political or religious bumper stickers, bar vendors from selling location data or using it to train AI, and let anyone searched illegally sue for at least $1,000 per violation.

States are moving too. Pennsylvania’s House passed House Bill 2771 by 190 to 13. It would limit use to police, some parking enforcement and secured facilities, require a warrant to access data, delete most records within 72 hours and ban facial recognition. It now goes to the state Senate. Flock says it will work with oversight rules but opposes an outright ban.

For now, the cameras already installed in your area are still running unless your local government has voted to switch them off. The layoffs don’t change that. What may change is how much data police can keep and who can search it, as cities rethink contracts and states write rules.

Supporters, including some police officials, say the cameras help them solve crimes, so the debate is far from settled. If you want a say, here’s where to start:

• Check your city council or county board agendas for license plate reader contracts, which often come up at renewal time.
• Ask how long plate data is kept, which other agencies can search it, and whether searches are logged and audited.
• Follow your state’s legislature, since warrant and data-deletion rules are moving in several states.