Highlights

Out-of-state law enforcement agencies are among the heaviest users of Flock Safety license plate reader data collected by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office and the Lake Havasu City Police Department, according to public records obtained by the Arizona Mirror under Arizona's public records law.

The records cover two agencies that have continued operating their Flock contracts even as several Arizona cities, including Chandler and Surprise, have terminated theirs over privacy concerns and documented misuse. The city of Tempe is weighing an outright ban, and Attorney General Kris Mayes has opened a review of the technology's use statewide.

Of the 137 agencies Lake Havasu PD shared its data with, 58 were in-state. The Houston Police Department, roughly 1,300 miles from Lake Havasu City, accounted for 31% of all searches of that system from June 1 to July 1, 2025. Every other Arizona law enforcement agency combined made approximately 53,214 searches, about 22% of the total, in the same period.

MCSO's exposure was broader. The agency shared its Flock "hotlists", vehicle-of-interest notification lists, with 77 agencies, including Customs and Border Protection and the Secret Service, as well as at least one Nevada school district and the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles. Thirty-five percent of the organizations MCSO's hotlists were shared with were listed in the records as "organization not found." MCSO spokesman Lt. Jason Thomas told the Mirror the agency could not explain that designation and directed reporters to Flock Safety, which did not respond to a request for comment.

The hotlist names themselves raised additional questions. Several carried labels, including "Meth Jungle," "All" and "Salty", that MCSO acknowledged do not comply with its own rules or Flock's training guidelines. Thomas said the labels were entered by individual users and that the office could not explain them without contacting those users directly, noting that many of the lists in question identify MCSO as their creator.

MCSO is also a prolific user of the system on its own behalf. Between November 2024 and August 2025, deputies conducted more than 13,000 individual searches and queried individual Flock cameras more than 100 million times, a figure the Mirror notes reflects the fact that a single search can be applied to hundreds or thousands of cameras simultaneously. Required case-number entries for those searches frequently contained incomplete data, odd phrases, or strings such as "Facebook," "eee," "Snap investigation" and "LAW ENFORCEMENT INVESTIGATION." Thomas said a user had failed to enter case numbers as required for a period of time and that the issue had been corrected.

Who has access to Arizona drivers' location data?

Under the Flock system, any agency granted access to a participating department's data can query where a vehicle has been seen, across that department's entire camera network. MCSO's hotlist-sharing extended the reach further, allowing partner agencies to receive automatic alerts when a vehicle of interest passed any camera on the network. Thomas said hotlist sharing with other law enforcement is standard practice and that investigators determine sharing based on whether outside agencies can assist in locating a wanted person.

The ACLU of Arizona's policy strategist, Katelynn Contreras, told the Mirror that the scale of out-of-state access is cause for serious concern. "Where you are driving can reveal very personal details about which doctors offices people go to, religious institutions they attend, AA meetings, gun shops, protests, things like that," Contreras said. "So, when we have out-of-state agencies searching where Arizonans go on a day to day basis, it does cause a lot of concern."

Both MCSO and Lake Havasu PD say they have since restricted hotlist sharing to in-state agencies. Lake Havasu stated the policy change took effect this month. MCSO's Thomas said any data previously shared with federal agencies was likely shared before formal data-sharing policies were established. Lake Havasu's Sgt. Kyle Ridgway said the department has no plans to cancel its Flock contract and has implemented monthly audits, spot checks, and automated alerts that flag when a user searches the same plate multiple times or queries a plate more than 30 days apart.

The Scottsdale Police Department operates more than 60 Flock cameras, deployed without a city council vote or public hearing, according to critics organized under the unFlock Scottsdale campaign. Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company behind the cameras, has faced scrutiny nationally: a Kansas police chief was found to have used the system to track his ex-girlfriend's vehicle 228 times over four-plus years, according to reporting aggregated by Scottsdale.org's city news coverage. Locally, an Apache Junction officer used the system to track his wife; that department has decided to continue using Flock.

The ACLU is pressing for either a warrant requirement before any Flock query or an outright ban. The Attorney General's review has no announced timeline for completion.

Sources

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  1. azmirror.com retrieved 25/09/2026 16:34

Authored by The Scottsdale Signal. Drafted by AI from primary-source material under our beat-specific editorial guides; reviewed by humans before publish under our five-gate process. Sources retrieved at 25/09/2026 16:34. Every claim traces to a source.