Flock's claims vs. the record.
Flock Safety and its supporters repeat a handful of claims in almost every city that considers this technology, including Murphy. We hold ourselves to the same standard we're asking of the record: every claim below is checked against a primary source, mostly Flock's own documents, and dated so you can verify it. If you find an error, tell us at [email protected] and we will correct it.
A fairness note: this page checks Flock's marketing and public claims, not any individual officer or the Murphy Police Department. Murphy has not issued a public statement disputing anything here, and none of this is directed at the people who use the system day to day. It's about what the company that sells it says versus what its own paperwork and independent audits show.
Claim: "You own your data."
Flock tells cities they own their data.
Flock's own Terms and Conditions (effective August 21, 2026) say: "As between Flock and Customer, all right, title, and interest in and to Customer Data belong to and are retained by Customer." But the same terms grant Flock: "a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to (a) use and disclose Customer Data to provide the Flock Services; and (b) use Customer Data to support and improve Flock's products and services." Irrevocable and perpetual: the city cannot take it back and it does not end, even after a city cancels (the Texas Tribune reported this survives termination). To be fair, the same terms also say "Flock shall not sell Customer Data," so this is not about a sale. Flock's products are AI: WIRED reported in August 2026 on a Flock tool that "can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone," and the LAPD Inspector General found at least one Flock contract that let the company retain data for five years and use it to train its models (Fortune, August 2026).
Takeaway: You hold the title. Flock holds a permanent license to use it.
Claim: "Flock has never been breached."
Flock's own Chief Information Security Officer wrote (March 27, 2026): "I can't promise that we can't be breached; no company or CISO can promise that." In June 2026, 404 Media reported Flock's own system exposed law-enforcement search queries, including case numbers and reasons, to the open internet where they were indexed by Bing and DuckDuckGo (Flock called it a bug). In December 2025, researchers found at least 60 Flock cameras exposed on the open internet with no password.
Takeaway: "Nobody broke into the cloud" is not the same as "your data was never exposed."
Claim: "The cameras don't run outdated software."
Flock's own CISO wrote (March 27, 2026) that "Flock hardware runs on a heavily modified version of the Android operating system maintained by Google," and that Flock will "continue to backport any necessary security patches." Backporting, by Flock's own definition, is what a vendor does when the base software no longer receives updates, so it writes its own patches.
Takeaway: By Flock's own account, the cameras run an older Android that Flock hand-patches. "Flock OS" is the management software, not the camera's operating system.
Claim: "It only reads license plates."
Flock trademarked "Vehicle Fingerprint" for the profile its machine vision builds from a vehicle's make, model, color, and distinguishing features (bumper stickers, roof racks, dents), and its own materials describe capturing vehicles even with no plate visible. This is AI image analysis, not simple plate reading.
On September 3, 2026, WIRED rebuilt Flock's actual search tool from the company's own code and confirmed it searches for people, not just plates: officers can search by a written description of a person (clothing, objects, even tattoos), draw a box on a city map to run a continuous AI watch for anyone matching a description, and enter one plate to pull up the other vehicles it has been "seen beside." Flock spent years telling the public its cameras "cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals." (WIRED, September 3, 2026)
Takeaway: It builds a searchable description of your whole vehicle, and now of people themselves, not just the plate.
Claim: "It is accurate and reliable."
When Roseville, California audited its own Flock alerts, 71 percent were wrong. The LAPD Inspector General found roughly one in three hot-list alerts were false, and the LAPD let its Flock contract lapse in July 2026. Misreads have consequences: innocent people have been pulled from their cars at gunpoint over a plate the system got wrong.
Takeaway: Powerful enough to track everyone, unreliable enough to be dangerous.
Why this matters for Murphy
On October 6, 2026, Murphy's council opted to have Flock remove its four cameras. Even so, the city has never published its Flock contract, so residents still cannot check these terms against what Murphy actually signed, and nothing adopted that night prevents a future council from signing a new one. That is exactly why this campaign is asking the city to publish the contract and put any camera program to a public vote. Read the draft resolution or email the council to ask for it.
Found an error above, or work for the City or for Flock and want to add context? Email [email protected] and we will correct the record.