Plymouth City Council votes to terminate contract with Flock

The Plymouth, Minnesota, City Council voted to terminate its contract with Flock, joining several Twin Cities metro suburbs that have pushed back on the technology over privacy and transparency concerns.

The mayor was the only person to vote against terminating the city's contract with Flock. Plymouth has more than a dozen cameras that read license plates positioned around the city.

During the city council meeting Tuesday night, Plymouth police acknowledged how complex the issue is, but also shared how the cameras have helped them track down suspects.

Police leaders say they help them respond faster to violent crimes and missing persons cases, pointing to two cases from this year that helped make arrests.

They also responded to concerns, saying they've never shared data with federal agencies and that they limit searches to supervisors and detectives.

However, residents who spoke at Tuesday's city council meeting weren't sold.

"That's too much data for any private entity to be able to track, especially in this day and age, in this state, given what we went through last winter," one resident said.

"I personally trust Chief Fadden. I don't trust Flock the company and most other ALPR systems," another resident said.

The discussion comes just a few months after an arrest error spurred by license plate readers in Plymouth sparked national headlines. Flock cameras flagged a car as stolen, but it was a mistake. Plymouth police say the arrest happened because the license plate was incorrectly entered into a nationwide database in another state. 

At the time, Flock said, "An alert should be one part of an investigation, not the whole basis for a stop." Since then, Flock has changed some of their policies around data retention and accountability.