Politics
Tempe cancels police license plate camera contract over privacy concerns
Mayor Corey Woods cited the risk of data abuse in terminating the city's $80,000 contract with Flock Safety.
The short version
- Tempe Mayor Corey Woods ended the police department's $80,000 contract with automated license plate reader provider Flock Safety, deactivating the roadside cameras on Wednesday morning.
- While Tempe officials reported no local misuse, Woods cited nationwide reports of officers abusing the system to spy on individuals as the primary reason for the cancellation.
- Flock Safety maintained that its technology includes strong privacy guardrails and argued that removing the cameras undermines community safety.
Key facts
- Tempe Mayor Corey Woods terminated the city police department's $80,000 contract with Flock Safety, effective Wednesday morning.[The Hill]
- Mayor Woods stated that no instances of data misuse were found within Tempe law enforcement, but national reports of police abusing the system prompted the decision to protect public trust.[The Hill]
- In response to criticism, Flock Safety updated its policies to reduce default video retention from 30 days to seven days and added detection measures for suspicious searches.[The Hill]
- Sen. Josh Hawley launched an investigation into Flock Safety regarding data protection and internal auditing across its network of over 120,000 cameras in 49 states.[The Hill]
What remains uncertain
- It remains uncertain whether other municipalities will follow Tempe in canceling their Flock Safety contracts.[The Hill]