Fresno will not renew with Flock Safety when its contract lapses in February 2027, Mayor Jerry Dyer announced on November 6. The city is not giving up on plate readers.
Why the mayor walked away
Dyer said the vendor’s protections failed to keep unauthorized agencies out of Fresno’s data. Speaking beside Police Chief Mindy Casto and Councilmember Nick Richardson, he stressed that he still supports the technology.
The trigger was disclosure that out-of-state police could reach Fresno plate reads the department never authorized. Casto said Flock confirmed by email that a system update caused the sharing, then fixed it.
An audit also found immigration-related searches by local agencies, though none originated with federal officers. Officials say the city runs nothing built to follow residents continuously.
A replacement vendor and a citywide rule
Fresno runs 70 fixed cameras, mostly in robbery and violent crime hot spots, and has read plates automatically since long before Flock arrived in 2023. A new contract could reach the City Council in December.
Separately, the city is drafting a policy on how plate data is accessed, stored and shared, and Dyer wants agencies outside California shut out of it.
Oversight has tightened too. The case last month against an officer accused of abusing Flock access came out of enhanced auditing.
The pattern Fresno is joining
At least 10 local governments have moved since summer to end, curb or restrict Flock deployments, per TechCrunch. Monroe, Newburgh, Richmond and New Bedford all walked away.
Voters in League City, Texas rejected their department’s cameras this week. Florida banned readers from state highways and Texas paused state grant money.
Fresno is the largest city so far to cut ties while keeping the technology. The dispute is now about vendor controls, not whether plate reading belongs on the street.
