Flock Safety, the Atlanta company whose automated license plate reader cameras blanket thousands of American communities, is facing a growing wave of lawsuits arguing that its surveillance network violates the Fourth Amendment and state privacy laws. The most prominent Flock camera lawsuit, filed in Norfolk, Virginia by the Institute for Justice, is now on appeal to the Fourth Circuit after a district judge ruled for the city. Class actions are pending in California and Colorado, Washington state has passed a new law restricting ALPR use, and dozens of cities have canceled their Flock contracts.
What Flock’s Cameras Do
Flock sells cloud-connected ALPR cameras to police departments, businesses, and homeowners’ associations. The cameras photograph license plates and capture vehicle characteristics on public roads, then upload the data to Flock’s centralized servers where subscribing law enforcement agencies can search it. The system has grown to include video clips, AI-powered natural language searches, and integration with commercial data brokers that can link plates to individual identities. Police can query the database nationwide, and records have shown the network being used to assist U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations and, in one Texas case, to track a woman regarding a self-administered abortion.1ACLU. Flock Roundup
Schmidt v. City of Norfolk: The Flagship Fourth Amendment Case
The lead constitutional challenge, Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, was filed on October 21, 2024, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The Institute for Justice represents two Norfolk residents, retired veteran Lee Schmidt and Crystal Arrington, who argue that the city’s 176 Flock cameras conduct warrantless, suspicionless searches by compiling long-term location data on ordinary drivers.2Institute for Justice. Norfolk Virginia Camera Surveillance They asked the court to disable the cameras and delete data collected on them. Norfolk operates under a $2.2 million contract with Flock that runs through the end of 2027.3NBC News. Virginia Police Used Flock Cameras to Track Driver
In February 2025, Chief Judge Mark S. Davis denied the city’s motion to dismiss, finding that “a reasonable person could believe that society’s expectations [of privacy] are being violated by the Norfolk Flock system.”4Institute for Justice. Public Interest Law Firm Responds to Flock Safety Pausing Federal Access Flock itself tried to intervene in May 2025 to defend the technology, but Judge Davis rejected the motion as untimely, writing that “Flock made a conscious gamble to not show up to the platform on time; it is not this Court’s fault that the train had already left the station by the time Flock arrived.”5Institute for Justice. Federal Court Rejects Flock Safety’s Late Bid to Join Lawsuit
A September 2025 filing showed how much data the system had collected on the plaintiffs. Schmidt’s location was logged 526 times between February 19 and July 2, 2025, roughly four times a day.3NBC News. Virginia Police Used Flock Cameras to Track Driver Arrington’s plate was captured 325 times over four months.6Courthouse News Service. Judge Holds Norfolk’s License Plate Reader Use Constitutional Neither had been suspected of any crime.7Yahoo News. Police Cameras Tracked One Driver
On January 27, 2026, Judge Davis issued a 51-page opinion granting summary judgment for the city. Photographing license plates on public roadways does not constitute a Fourth Amendment “search,” the court held, even when done repeatedly, because plates are identifiers drivers are required by law to display. Judge Davis distinguished the Supreme Court’s Carpenter v. United States decision, which required warrants for cellphone location tracking, reasoning that 176 fixed cameras cannot “catalogue citizens’ movements in their entirety.”6Courthouse News Service. Judge Holds Norfolk’s License Plate Reader Use Constitutional He also cited Norfolk’s 21-day rolling retention policy, finding it insufficient to open an “intimate window” into private life.813News Now. Norfolk Virginia Ruling: License Plate Reader Flock System Constitutional The court did find the plaintiffs had standing to challenge the collection itself, but dismissed their separate challenge to warrantless database queries because officers had never actually searched for their specific plates.
The Institute for Justice filed a notice of appeal on February 25, 2026, and submitted its opening brief to the Fourth Circuit on April 13, 2026. The appeal argues Judge Davis applied the wrong test by requiring surveillance to capture the “whole” of a person’s movements to qualify as a search. It leans on Carpenter and the Fourth Circuit’s own ruling in Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, contending the proper analysis asks whether the cameras reveal intimate habits, whether they are cheaper and more efficient than human surveillance, and whether stored data lets police reconstruct past movements without prior suspicion.9Institute for Justice. Norfolk Opening Brief The appeal is pending.
Other Virginia Rulings on Flock Evidence
Norfolk did not arise in isolation. In United States v. Martin (E.D. Va. 2024), Senior U.S. District Judge Robert E. Payne denied a motion to suppress Flock evidence, holding the cameras “merely augment the same inherent sensory faculties of law enforcement that have existed since the Founding.” Judge Payne rejected a “Mosaic Theory” that would weigh surveillance duration and efficiency, finding Flock captured only short-term public movements rather than the persistent tracking at issue in Carpenter.10Virginia Lawyers Weekly. Mosaic Theory Rejected: Flock Camera Evidence Does Not Violate Fourth Amendment Police in that case had accessed only three images of the defendant’s vehicle from 2,500 captured over 30 days.11Court of Appeals of Virginia. Commonwealth v. Church
In October 2025 the Virginia Court of Appeals relied on Martin in Commonwealth v. Church to reverse a lower court that had suppressed statements obtained through Flock data, agreeing that short-term capture on public roads with 30-day retention did not require a warrant.11Court of Appeals of Virginia. Commonwealth v. Church The Fourth Circuit’s ruling on the Norfolk appeal will now determine whether that trend survives.
California Class Actions
Javorsky v. Flock
On February 26, 2026, Daniel Javorsky and Anthony Mayor filed a class action against Flock in San Francisco Superior Court, represented by Gibbs Mura LLP and Milberg PLLC. The complaint targets Flock under state law rather than the Fourth Amendment, alleging the company violated California’s ALPR Privacy Act (enacted in 2015 through SB 34) by enabling “side-door” access that let federal and out-of-state agencies search California ALPR data, bypassing the statute’s prohibition on sharing outside California public agencies.12Courthouse News Service. California Drivers Accuse Flock Safety of Sharing Data With Federal and Out-of-State Agencies It also brings claims for negligence, invasion of privacy under the California Constitution, intrusion upon seclusion, and violations of California’s Unfair Competition Law.13Courthouse News Service. Javorsky v. Flock Complaint
The proposed class covers anyone whose California plate data was accessible to federal and out-of-state agencies through Flock going back to February 2022, spanning Oakland, San Francisco, Berkeley, Sacramento, and other cities.12Courthouse News Service. California Drivers Accuse Flock Safety of Sharing Data With Federal and Out-of-State Agencies Under the ALPR Privacy Act, individuals can seek a minimum of $2,500 per violation in actual damages, plus punitive damages and attorney’s fees. An amended complaint was filed on April 3, 2026.14Class Law Group. Flock Safety License Plate Reader Cameras Lawsuit Flock said it intends to “vigorously defend” against the claims and pointed out that it had already removed California agencies from its national lookup feature.
Two San Jose Suits
San Jose police operate 474 Flock cameras, which detected 2.8 million vehicles in a single 30-day period.15NBC News. San Jose Drivers Sue City, Police Over Flock Cameras In November 2025 the EFF and the ACLU of Northern California sued in Santa Clara County Superior Court on behalf of SIREN (Services, Immigrant Rights and Education Network) and CAIR-CA, alleging that warrantless police searches of the ALPR database violate the California Constitution. The city filed a demurrer in January 2026 and the case is active.16ACLU of Northern California. SIREN v. City of San Jose
On April 15, 2026, the Institute for Justice filed a separate federal class action in the Northern District of California on behalf of three San Jose residents, Zhaocheng Anthony Tan, Scott West, and Colin Wolfson, raising Fourth Amendment claims parallel to those in Norfolk.17Institute for Justice. Complaint for Declaratory and Injunctive Relief It asks the court to require police to delete most captured data within 24 hours and to obtain a warrant before accessing any information.15NBC News. San Jose Drivers Sue City, Police Over Flock Cameras The complaint alleges the technology allows police to create “vehicle journey maps” tracking visits to clinics and places of worship, and that officers can run searches on “a hunch, idle curiosity, or even personal animus.”18KQED. San Jose Residents Sue City, Saying Flock Safety Cameras Allow Mass Surveillance Audit logs cited in the complaint showed 2.5 million searches of the data in the last six months of 2025. In March 2026 the San Jose City Council reduced its data retention period from one year to one month.
Boulder, Colorado
On May 27, 2026, two Boulder residents, Will Freeman (the founder of the activist project DeFlock) and Gwen Steel, filed a class action in Boulder District Court challenging the city’s 31 Flock cameras.19Boulder Reporting Lab. Boulder Residents Sue Police Chief Over Alleged Mass Surveillance by Flock Cameras Represented by the Denver firm Newman McNulty, they allege the system violates the Colorado Constitution’s prohibition on warrantless searches by tracking drivers and cyclists without individualized suspicion.20Colorado Sun. Lawsuit: Boulder Police Flock Cameras
The suit names Police Chief Stephen Redfearn and city records supervisor Dawn VanAckeren as defendants. Freeman alleges VanAckeren violated the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act by refusing to release records of images and data Flock captured of his own vehicle, with the police department claiming his request did not fall under “law enforcement purposes.” The complaint also alleges the cameras can classify people by race, gender, height, weight, and clothing, and can track non-vehicle movement such as cyclists.19Boulder Reporting Lab. Boulder Residents Sue Police Chief Over Alleged Mass Surveillance by Flock Cameras Boulder has contracted with Flock since 2022 at an annual cost of $82,500.20Colorado Sun. Lawsuit: Boulder Police Flock Cameras For three years the city allowed non-Colorado agencies, including some connected to ICE, to access its Flock data; access was limited to roughly 90 Colorado-based agencies in June 2025.21KGNU. Citizens Suing Boulder Police Over Flock Cameras
The Federal Data-Sharing Revelations
A major catalyst for the current wave of litigation was the August 2025 disclosure that Flock had been running pilot programs with U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations, giving those agencies direct access to Flock’s backend to search more than 80,000 cameras nationwide. Some local departments said they had not known they were sharing data with the federal government.22404 Media. CBP Had Access to More Than 80,000 Flock AI Cameras Nationwide An audit by Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias found that Flock’s own management was unaware of the pilot’s specifics and ordered the company to cut off CBP’s access, citing violations of state law.23Illinois Secretary of State. Giannoulias Audit Finds License Plate Reader Company in Violation of State Law
CEO Garrett Langley acknowledged the company had “communicated poorly” about the federal relationships and previously provided “inaccurate information.”24NPR. Flock Contracts Canceled Over Immigration Surveillance Concerns Flock paused all federal pilot programs on August 25, 2025, and said it would designate federal users as a separate category to prevent blanket database searches.25The Register-Guard. Flock Safety Halts Federal Pilot Programs
Washington Public Records Suits and the Driver Privacy Act
Washington produced a different kind of Flock litigation: whether the footage is a public record. A Skagit County Superior Court ruled in November 2025 that it is, rejecting the argument that data stored on Flock’s private servers was exempt from the Public Records Act simply because a government agency had not downloaded it.26Electronic Frontier Foundation. Washington Court Rules Data Captured by Flock Safety Cameras Are Public Records A Snohomish County judge reached a similar conclusion in February 2026 for the city of Everett, finding the footage pertains to “the conduct of government.” A Pierce County judge ruled the opposite way, calling un-retained data “transitory” and exempt.27Everett Herald. Snohomish County Judge Rules Flock Camera Footage Is Public Record
The Washington Legislature responded with SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Act, signed by Governor Bob Ferguson on March 30, 2026. The law requires agencies to register ALPR systems with the Attorney General, generally limits retention to 72 hours (with exceptions for active investigations), bans use for immigration enforcement or tracking people exercising constitutional rights, and prohibits collection near schools, places of worship, and facilities offering immigration or protected health care services.28ACLU of Washington. Gov. Ferguson Signs SB 6002, the Driver Privacy Act, Into Law Data obtained in violation of the statute is inadmissible in court, and willful violations are gross misdemeanors.29Washington State Legislature. SB 6002 Bill Report Several Washington agencies have suspended ALPR operations while evaluating the requirements.30MRSC. Restrictions on Flock Cameras
Contract Cancellations and Flock’s Response
Since the start of 2025, at least 30 localities have deactivated Flock cameras or canceled their contracts.24NPR. Flock Contracts Canceled Over Immigration Surveillance Concerns31WABE. Some Cities Ditching Atlanta-Based Company’s License Plate Readers32University of Washington Center for Human Rights. Leaving the Door Wide Open Immigration concerns have been the primary driver. In Verona, Wisconsin, city records showed 974 searches tagged as “federal” and 1,628 by organizations identifying as ICE in a single month, despite the company’s assurances of restricted access.33News From the States. Verona Has Waited Months for Flock Cameras to Come Down After Canceling Contract
Flock’s response to critics has itself drawn attention. CEO Langley described DeFlock, a volunteer project that maps Flock camera locations, as a “terroristic organization” and compared it to “Antifa.”34IPVM. Flock Allegations Against Critics In an email to customers, he alleged Flock was under a “coordinated attack” by groups aiming to “defund the police, weaken public safety, and normalize lawlessness.” The police chief of Staunton, Virginia publicly rebuked that characterization, calling the activists’ inquiries “democracy in action.”24NPR. Flock Contracts Canceled Over Immigration Surveillance Concerns
Where the Litigation Stands
The central question is unresolved: whether a dense network of fixed ALPR cameras counts as the kind of pervasive surveillance that requires a warrant under the Fourth Amendment. Virginia trial courts have consistently said no, treating the cameras as the digital equivalent of an officer standing on a corner writing down plates. The Institute for Justice’s appeal to the Fourth Circuit, which previously held that aerial surveillance of Baltimore neighborhoods could constitute a Fourth Amendment search, is the nearest opportunity for a different answer. The California suits proceed on a separate track, testing whether Flock’s data-sharing practices violated that state’s specific ALPR privacy statute and constitution. The Boulder case will test similar claims under the Colorado Constitution. Any of the pending cases could shift the legal ground under Flock’s business.