How 1 town’s Flock data reached 459 agencies

TL;DR: A resident of Pflugerville, Texas, recently requested public Flock data—and discovered something disturbing: Outside agencies accessed this data 1.6 million times in a six-month period, compared to just 5,078 searches from its own police department during that span. The town is now no longer using Flock—and it’s not alone.

What happened: Here are some head-spinning numbers: In Pflugerville—which has a population of around 68,000—459 outside agencies searched its Flock data 1.6 million times in the last six months, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

The kicker? The city says only 83 agencies were authorized to access this data. It’s unclear who exactly was running all those searches, though the report names several out-of-state law enforcement agencies (which account for at least 865 of these requests). Last week, after the findings of the resident’s public records request were posted to social media, the city ended its Flock contract and covered up its 28 cameras.

And this kind of access creep apparently isn’t just a Pflugerville problem. A recent Wired investigation found that Flock data from the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta was shared with over 2,000 outside orgs, including police departments, colleges, airports, and other government agencies—like Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

How Flock data spreads: You might be wondering how so many outside groups can obtain one city’s data in the first place. Flock’s explanation, per a company spokesperson: Pflugerville had statewide data sharing turned on since 2024; Flock did include two out-of-state agencies by mistake (but says it fixed this months ago). “Agencies control their sharing settings and can change or revoke them at any time,” the spokesperson told the San Antonio Express-News.

A city spokesperson offered a different account to the outlet, however: Flock recently disclosed to the police that a bug had let Pflugerville’s records surface in national database searches. “The monthly dashboard reports provided by Flock to the Police Department did not show this discrepancy,” the spokesperson said—those showed only searches from the local PD and authorized agencies.

Flock off: As backlash to police misuse of Flock data continues to mount, more states and cities are turning away from the company. Last week, two suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, ended their Flock contracts. Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Transportation just ordered police to remove all automated license plate readers from state highways, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blocked state spending on Flock a few days ago.

Bottom line: The public was already up in arms about Flock’s self-admitted abuse problem. Now the trouble isn’t just how this data gets wielded by local police, but all the other unknown groups who can access it, too. —WK