On April 28, 2026, the city administratively renewed Flock Safety's contract using a Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority grant — $693,334 in grant funds plus $138,666 in city tax dollars. An amendment requires EPPD to write the grant without naming Flock exclusively, meaning El Paso can now choose from other Buy Board vendors. The contract is now public. Read it here. The surveillance problems haven't gone away. Neither have we.
On April 28, 2026, the city renewed the Flock contract through a Motor Vehicle Crime Prevention Authority (MVCPA) grant application — $693,334 in grant funds plus $138,666 in El Paso tax dollars. An amendment requires EPPD to write future grant applications without naming Flock exclusively. If acceptable terms can't be negotiated, a different Buy Board vendor can be chosen.
The requirement that EPPD not name Flock exclusively in future grant applications is a real accountability win — it creates a path to a different vendor. Whether that path is used depends on public pressure, negotiation outcomes, and whether council members hold EPPD to it. We are watching.
The renewal doesn't fix Android 8.1 vulnerabilities. It doesn't explain the Harris County data access. It doesn't reverse the February 2026 Terms of Service rewrite that removed data-sale protections. It doesn't provide the written ICE access prohibition El Paso's border community deserves. The contract is renewed. The fight for accountability continues.
Each dot is a camera photographing your vehicle. The map includes cameras operated by EPPD and surrounding agencies. Ciudad Juárez is visible in the lower frame — this is a border city.
El Paso is not Flock's customer.— DeFlock El Paso
El Paso residents are the product.
Flock Safety is valued at $7.5 billion. El Paso paid less than $5,000 per camera per year to photograph every vehicle in our city, 24 hours a day. That price only makes sense if your movements, your patterns, and your data are worth far more than the hardware. You didn't sign up to be surveilled. El Paso signed you up for them.
El Paso paid $702,500 in grant money for 150 cameras — less than $4,700 per camera per year — to photograph every vehicle in a major city around the clock. Flock Safety is valued at $7.5 billion with $950 million in venture capital. Those numbers do not add up unless the cameras are not the product. You are.
Flock's own patent (US11416545B1) describes AI that classifies pedestrians, bicyclists, and animals — and explicitly describes face recognition query capability. Flock publicly states they do not use facial recognition. Their federal patent filing says otherwise. El Paso should know which capabilities are active in our deployment.
Texas has no state law governing how ALPR data must be stored, who can access it, or how long it can be kept. Multiple bills have been introduced in Austin — all died in committee. El Paso residents' only protection is the contract — the same contract Flock rewrote in February 2026 to remove the data-sale prohibition.
The Texas Department of Public Safety launched an investigation into Flock Safety over the company's private security license — which is required to legally operate in Texas. The status of that investigation has not been publicly resolved. El Paso should not renew a contract with a vendor under active state investigation.
"If you really read the Flock contract, data will not be shared unless required by law. Can we agree on this? That's where the back door can be opened." — Rep. Limón voted for contract cancellation. She deserves community support.
"We support El Paso PD having effective public safety tools. We are calling for the removal of this specific vendor — and any like it — that profits from El Paso residents' data."— DeFlock El Paso
More than 30 cities since January 2025. El Paso can join them.
No. We support El Paso PD having effective public safety tools. We are calling for the removal of this specific vendor — one with documented security failures, a quietly rewritten contract, a history of enabling unauthorized federal data access, and a patent that contradicts its own marketing claims. Good policing deserves a trustworthy vendor. Flock is not that vendor.
They can. But evidence gathered through a compromised system can be thrown out in court — as happened in Norfolk, Virginia, where a federal judge ruled ALPR data collection without a warrant constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment. We are protecting EPPD's ability to make cases stick by ensuring their tools are legally sound and properly secured.
El Paso PD says no. But ICE's own Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA-039) requires audit logs of all ALPR queries to be provided to ICE — not to local police. EPPD cannot independently verify who has searched El Paso's data. In other cities, ICE accessed Flock data for extended periods without the local police department's knowledge. El Paso is a border city. We deserve more than a verbal assurance.
The initial deployment was grant-funded. But the grant covers hardware — not the ongoing data rights Flock retains, not the subscription costs of future renewals, and not the legal and financial liability if El Paso continues using a vendor under Texas DPS investigation. The cost of a data breach or legal challenge could far exceed the original grant.
The contract is renewed — but it includes an amendment requiring EPPD to write future grant applications without naming Flock exclusively. We are calling on council to hold EPPD to that amendment, demand the accountability conditions we've documented on the facts page, and ensure any vendor — Flock or a replacement — meets the standards El Paso's community deserves.
The renewal included an amendment requiring open vendor selection — that's only meaningful if residents hold council to it. Contact your representative to demand the accountability conditions we've been calling for.
Contact Your Representative →The city renewed Flock through an MVCPA grant application. An amendment requires EPPD to write future grants without naming Flock exclusively. The contract is now public →
Read more →Despite concerns from Reps. Canales and Limón, the council voted against the cancellation proposal. The renewal that followed on April 28 happened without a second full council vote.
Read more →The renewed contract was signed under terms that no longer prohibit Flock from selling customer data. El Paso residents deserve to know what the new terms say.
See the facts →