While surveillance is often necessary to keep people safe, technology can be abused by companies and governments, violating the rights of citizens. Because of proven risks, we, The Union, believe that the Milpitas government should cancel its contract with Flock Safety.
Flock Safety, a private company founded in 2017, specializes in surveillance technology. It has been in the news lately because of their automated-license plate reader (ALPR) cameras—cameras that automatically capture and store the license plates of any car that passes. The number of Flock cameras in the U.S. grew exponentially within the last year alone: from 19,825 cameras on Aug. 29 in 2025, to over 130,000 by the end of August this year, deflock.org.
The problem isn’t surveillance itself; it is the lack of transparency and Flock’s privacy violations. When a city or a county enters into a contract with Flock Safety, it has the option to share the collected camera data with other government entities, including the federal government.
However, in many instances, the option to share that data to out-of-state agencies was enabled even though local law enforcement disabled the features, such as in Ventura County. Additionally, although in violation of state law, Flock allowed out-of-state agencies, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), to run 1.6 million searches in San Francisco’s police department’s databases, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Flock technology has even been misused by local law enforcement. According to an NPR article, “Some police officers…stalk ex-partners, or accessed the data for immigration purposes without a local government’s consent.” Specifically, there have been more than a dozen cases of cops being arrested for the misuse of Flock technology across the entire country.
As a result, Flock Safety has faced intense backlash from several civil rights organizations and has led to many cities and countries across the U.S., including Mountain View, to cancel their contracts. Two hundred fourteen contracts between Flock Safety and local governments have been canceled as of Aug. 28.
The first cameras in Milpitas were installed in early February of 2025. As of Aug. 30, there are around 40 Flock cameras in Milpitas, according to deflock.org. Ironically, a crime report published by the Milpitas Police Department spanning from January 2025 to July 2026 actually shows an increase in crime. Part I Crimes (categorized as serious felony offenses, including violent and property crime) increased by 7.1%, arrests increased by 9.1%, and property crimes increased by 5.6%.
In a country where the federal government grows more authoritarian-like every day, we cannot afford to give up our privacy without the transparency of the institutions involved. Flock Safety’s lack of guardrails for the abuse of its technology opens the door for a dystopian-like hyper surveillance state.
Maintaining a democracy takes action and vigilance from citizens, and one step we can take now is to demand that Milpitas cancel its contract with Flock safety.
