Flock Safety, a controversial surveillance firm, has been contracted by the Durango Police Department to maintain a network of license plate readers throughout our city. While the department has highlighted its usefulness in finding stolen vehicles  and persons of interest, the data collected by Flock cameras is being used to create a searchable national database of the movements and activities of all people in America, not just those under active investigation.

According to a letter from Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon to the CEO of Flock, the company is contracted with more than 5,000 police departments, 1,000 businesses and numerous homeowners across 49 states. 75% of law enforcement customers are enrolled in the “National Lookup Tool” which permits any other enrolled customer to search data collected through their cameras.

In August, 9 News in Denver revealed that Flock had granted U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) access to its systems, enabling the agency to search data collected by Flock’s cameras, including using the National Lookup Tool. After this news broke, the company revealed that CBP, Homeland Security Investigations (HIS), the Secret Service, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service had access as part of the pilot and had conducted hundreds of searches using the tool during the summer of 2025.

Flock deliberately misled state and local law enforcement stating that they did not have relationships with DHS while these pilot programs were active. In several cases, local law enforcement agencies have shared their passwords with federal agents for immigration-related purposes and searched using the National Lookup Tool for people they aimed to deport.

Flock requires law enforcement officers to provide a reason for a search which is entered into a text box. It does not require law enforcement officers to enter a case-specific reason for a search, and many searches have been conducted using terms such as “crime” or “investigation.”

In May of this year, a sergeant in the Johnson County Sheriff's office in Texas used the National Lookup Tool to look for a woman who had left town and was suspected to have had an abortion.

The City of Durango, Colorado owns and operates 21 Flock cameras  that monitor all roads in and out of town along with the main street corridor. While the City can audit and monitor how DPD uses the Flock System, the truth is that they have limited control over how the data collected by Durango’s cameras are used by other law enforcement agencies, including national law enforcement agencies.

Flock is already being used to hunt down immigrants and women suspected of having an abortion but that is just the beginning. Flock is introducing tools that allow searches based on basic descriptions of people and is planning to create alerts based on people following a pattern of movement deemed comparable to someone who has created a crime.

Abuse of this information is inevitable, and Flock has demonstrated that they have no interest in preventing use of this data to infringe on basic civil liberties.

Cities around the Country are currently reevaluating their decision to install Flock cameras. The Durango City Council can best protect residents from abuse of this system by removing the flock cameras from our community immediately.

Please sign the petition and tell the City Council to terminate its contract with Flock Safety immediately. Doing so will safeguard our privacy and ensure we uphold civil rights in our community.