Bagging a camera is evidently not the same as turning it off, as one Missouri city discovered while answering a public records request.
Excelsior Springs covered all 15 of its Flock Safety plate readers in October, a day after the city council voted 5-0 to end the contract. Then, while fulfilling a Missouri Sunshine Law request, staff found the wrapped units were still capturing some license plate information.
A second bag, and a deadline
The police department disclosed the gap on Facebook on Thursday, saying maintenance crews were placing an additional cover over each camera to finish the job. Mayor Sonya Morgan has said the agreement with Flock ends in November and the hardware will be down by then, without naming a day.
The episode matters beyond one suburb. Dozens of US cities have quit or suspended automated plate recognition this year, and bagging, unplugging or standing down is the usual first move when a vote lands before the vendor’s field crew arrives. If a tarp leaves the lens partly sighted, collection continues after the political decision to stop it.
Flock’s cameras run on battery and cellular links and were installed across the city from 2023. The optics can sit at an angle where a loose cover still leaves a corner of plate visible to a long lens.
What the city has not said
Officials have not said how many plates were logged after the cameras were covered, who retained them, or whether the data went to Flock’s network. The department’s post offered no technical explanation, only an apology and a promise to fix the wrapping.
The council vote followed a citizen petition, a town hall and weeks of hearings. Voters got the outcome they asked for; the cameras, for a while longer, kept reading.
