Tempe faces call to remove AI cameras that track where you’ve been

A nationwide network of surveillance cameras is surreptitiously tracking your movements, including when you drive through Tempe. What’s more, federal agents have been documented using that network to track down people they want to deport.

Now a Tempe City Council candidate is pushing the city to end its contract with Flock Safety, the company that makes the cameras and provides them to cities, law enforcement agencies and businesses. On Oct. 16, Bobby Nichols spoke out against the cameras and Flock —  which was recently caught being less-than-transparent about allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to access their data — at the council’s most recent public meeting.

“I am particularly opposed to Tempe’s contract with Flock,” Nichols told the council during the public comment portion of the meeting, “as it poses an unreasonable risk to the safety and well-being of more than 40,000 Hispanic and Latino residents of Tempe, who are already facing a rampant and unwarranted increase in searches, seizures, detentions and deportations.”

Flock’s surveillance cameras are like something out of George Orwell’s “1984.” They use AI-powered technology to scan the license plate of every car they encounter and upload it into a massive database, though the company says scanned license plates are deleted after 30 days. The cameras — called automatic license-plate readers, or ALPRs — can also identify cars by their make and model and can even scan bumper stickers.

The cameras allow authorities — usually local governments — to track anyone they want, and there seem to be few guardrails. News outlets have documented a Texas law enforcement agency using the readers to track the movements of a woman who had an abortion. Other local agencies have performed lookups on behalf of immigration authorities. Even if the Tempe Police Department doesn’t use their ALPR cameras to track someone for sketchy reasons, someone tapping into the wider Flock network may scan the images Tempe’s cameras have captured.

An Oct. 16 letter from Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden to Flock, explaining how he’d be urging Oregon municipalities to cancel their Flock contracts, laid out the concerns about Flock.

“Flock operates the largest network of surveillance cameras in the United States, reportedly contracting with more than 5,000 police departments, 1,000 businesses, and numerous homeowners associations across 49 states,” Wyden wrote. “In August, Flock informed my office that 75% of its law enforcement customers have enrolled in the ‘National Lookup Tool,’ which permits any other enrolled customer to search data collected through their cameras.”

Tempe spokesperson Kris Baxter-Ging told New Times that the city is not sharing its data through this “National Lookup Tool,” but that it can access data from other cities. Public records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier this year showed Tempe officers searching data collected by cameras associated with other law enforcement agencies. (None of the searches appeared to be for immigration purposes.) The data showed that Tempe was able to search more than 6,000 camera networks, containing data from even more ALPR cameras.

A Flock backlash

Baxter-Ging also said that Tempe “is not sharing information with ICE or HSI,” adding that the city’s Data Governance Committee would review the contract. 

ICE does not have a Flock contract, though related agencies — including Homeland Security Investigations — previously could access some Flock cameras through a now-defunct pilot program with the company. Baxter-Ging could not say for certain that ICE or HSI has not accessed the city’s data, either through the pilot program or by way of a third-party searching the Flock network on its behalf.

Various Arizona police departments have said previously that ICE has not been accessing the data collected from their Flock cameras. However, one city in Washington state condemned U.S. border patrol agents for doing just that without authorization.

That perceived invasion of privacy — whether immigration-related or not, many people seem skeeved out by knowing that law enforcement agencies are silently tracking their movements with little oversight — has led cities across the state and the country to cancel their contracts with Flock. Residents in Flagstaff and Tucson have clamored for those cities to end their association with Flock, while Sedona has already moved to cancel its contract and has removed its Flock cameras. 

Nichols wants Tempe to be next.

“Flock has been dishonest the whole time and has not been transparent about how the data is being used, where the data is being held and what it’s intended for,” Nichols told Phoenix New Times in an interview. “I think it’s pretty clear that this is about making money, and their business model is having this massive database of all of our personally identifying information, which can then be accessed by police departments or by DHS and ICE — which is hugely problematic considering some of the abuses we’ve seen by DHS and ICE over the last two years.”

Tempe’s contract with Flock began in 2021 and has been renewed several times since. It is now set to run through September 2027. The contract established 10 ALPR cameras throughout the city. In a February 2025 contract modification, the city added three cameras capable of live video, paying $2,750 for installation and $10,250 in annual fees.

According to financial information shared in a council meeting packet, the city paid more than $89,000 to Flock in July, which Baxter-Ging said was an annual contract payment. Baxter-Ging declined to say how many cameras are currently in use.

“To maintain community security, the number and locations of these cameras are kept confidential,” she wrote to New Times via email. 

Privacy concerns

Privacy concerns about the Flock cameras, and the potential for their unintended use by ICE, could become a major issue in the city’s March 2026 elections. Tempe City Council elections are at-large elections, meaning if Nichols is a top-three vote-getter, he’ll win a seat. Three incumbents are up for reelection.

Nichols said voters he’s spoken to have been highly concerned when informed about Tempe’s contract with the company.

“Once you get people to understand that these aren’t just speeding ticket cameras or standard license plate readers, people are pretty freaked out,” Nichols said. “There are multiple layers of potential privacy violations there.”

The company’s lack of guardrails leaves its network of cameras ripe for abuse. Law enforcement entities do not have to enter a specific case number to run a search and sometimes list no reason at all. One police chief in Kansas used a Flock network search to track his ex-girlfriend.

“Abuse of Flock cameras is inevitable, and Flock has made it clear it takes no responsibility to prevent or detect that,” Wyden wrote in his letter. “For that reason, I must now recommend that communities that have installed Flock cameras reevaluate that decision.”

New Times asked Tempe Mayor Corey Woods if the council will follow Wyden’s advice and consider terminating the contract with Flock. He said the license plate readers were “highly effective” for the police department, but the city would reconsider its contract.

“Based on the national response to this issue, we have referred the existing contract to be reviewed by our Data Governance Committee for evaluation,” Woods told New Times via text. “We can determine any further action needed when they have completed their review.”

Nichols said he’ll continue to press the issue. “I’ll be fighting to have this contract terminated if it’s not terminated by the time I’m elected,” he said. It’s continued to weigh on him as he campaigns. Flock recently announced that it will partner with Ring, which makes doorbell cameras.

“It’s especially interesting going to doors on it now,” Nichols said. “I imagine a lot of these conversations are in the database now — so many people use Ring doorbells.”