A Flock Safety presentation obtained through public records reveals that the law enforcement technology vendor proposed a partnership with dashcam maker Nexar to convert approximately 350,000 Uber, Lyft, and delivery vehicles into mobile license-plate readers.

Flock stated that the Nexar deal was never executed, and it remains unclear whether the drivers or the ride-hailing platforms were aware of the plan. Had it proceeded, the arrangement would have effectively enrolled gig economy workers—without their knowledge—into a surveillance infrastructure, raising questions about consent and the obligations of platforms whose vehicles would have served as data-collection nodes.

The revelation comes at a challenging time for the Atlanta-based company, which is facing the expiration of its Los Angeles Police Department contract, approximately two dozen documented cases of alleged officer abuse involving its system, and an expanding legislative pushback at both the state and federal levels.

Nexar Partnership Would Have Created Civilian-Scale Surveillance Network

A presentation prepared by Flock for the Georgia Attorney General's office—and subsequently shared with 404 Media—outlined a strategy to deploy Nexar dashcams, already installed in hundreds of thousands of vehicles, to scan the license plates of surrounding cars as drivers navigated their routes.

Flock's flagship product is a pole-mounted camera that captures the plate number, color, make, and model of every passing vehicle, constructing a searchable database of vehicle locations. These cameras have proven deeply divisive in the communities where they have been installed, with some residents knocking them down or covering them in protest.

The Nexar concept would have freed these cameras from fixed positions. Rather than monitoring a single intersection, a fleet of 350,000 vehicles would have carried the technology across entire regions, closing coverage gaps between stationary cameras and enabling real-time plate tracking.

Axon already markets a similar roaming system designed for police cruisers, while Motorola's DRN and Vigilant Solutions operate comparable technology through repossession agents' vehicles. Flock's pitch sought to extend this model to civilian scale—a category that, if realized, would have represented one of the largest privately operated vehicle-tracking networks in the United States.

Growing Backlash Amid Expansion

Flock reached an $8.4 billion valuation in April, and its stationary cameras are now deployed across more than 5,000 U.S. communities. However, the company's operational landscape is shifting.

In July, the LAPD allowed its Flock contract to lapse, citing "serious concerns" regarding civil liberties and privacy. CNN has documented at least two dozen cases in which officers resigned or were arrested for allegedly abusing Flock's license-plate system.

The backlash extends beyond local jurisdictions. In May, the non-profit advocacy group EPIC urged Congress to ban automatic license-plate readers entirely. States are also acting independently: Washington passed SB 6002 restricting Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) use, and California is considering legislation to limit how the collected data is shared. Decrypt previously reported on a proposed House bill that would require warrants for government AI surveillance.

The deployment of Flock cameras on federal buildings has also drawn significant opposition from civil rights advocates.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) announced plans to introduce federal legislation addressing the technology:

I'll soon be sponsoring a bill to withhold federal money from municipalities and police departments that deploy Flock (and other style) cameras to surveil law abiding citizens. pic.twitter.com/FGzE69psxS
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) July 25, 2026

Legal Challenges Advance

On the legal front, a federal judge allowed a lawsuit in Norfolk to proceed, ruling that the case—which alleges Flock cameras violate the Fourth Amendment—has sufficient merit. The judge cited the Supreme Court's ruling in Carpenter v. United States regarding warrantless tracking as relevant precedent, according to a press release from the Institute for Justice. That 2018 ruling held that the government's warrantless acquisition of cell-site location records constituted a Fourth Amendment search, establishing a constitutional framework that privacy advocates now argue extends to persistent plate-reader networks capable of reconstructing an individual's movements over time. The Norfolk case is being closely watched as a potential bellwether for similar challenges in other jurisdictions.