5 cameras active · North Canton, OH
5 Flock surveillance cameras are here in North Canton. Zero people voted for them.
Hey neighbor, I'm Joshua. This website exists only to inform you about the Flock Surveillance situation in our community. You can ignore it, you can not care, that's your right. I just want you to be aware. There are 5 Flock license plate cameras in North Canton that are capturing and logging the details and movements of every car that drives past. Nobody voted on them. Not the public. Not City Council. The cameras belong to Flock Safety, a private company in Atlanta who is contractually allowed to use anonymized data from our cameras to train AI (even if we cancel the contract). Our movements are being shared with 1,900+ agencies, Federal and State, all over the country, without our permission.
- Who approved them Learn who requested, who signed. No ordinance, City Council discussion, public meeting, or vote. read →
- What they cost $2,500 per camera, per year. $51,167.81 spent so far, and about $25,000 still committed. read →
- Who owns the data On paper, the City. In practice it controls almost none of it. And Flock can train AI on anonymized data, during and after the contract. read →
- Why I think you should care 1,920 organizations can search it. We, the people, never agreed to this. Dayton shut theirs off for a reason. read →
- Common questions Aren't these stopping crime? How long is it kept? Fair questions, straight answers. read →
- What we can do One letter, thirty days' notice, canceled. Eighty two contracts across 28 states have already ended. read →
↓ give me a few minutes to walk you through it. Sources referenced throughout.
who approved them
Three signatures, four years ago
From a sales call to a five year contract, with no public meeting in between.
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2022Summer
A Flock rep finishes in Jackson Township and calls North Canton
In the City's words, he "made contact with the Police Department." City's email
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2022Aug
Flock designs the placement plan before the first meeting
"We put together a camera plan for you with just 5 cameras total." email
- 2022Nov
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2023Dec
Signed again, this time for five years
Sixty months at $12,500 a year, $62,500 total, then it auto-renews. Same signature: DeOrio. Same process: no vote. renewal
I asked the City for any Council meeting minutes on the topic. There are none.
"There are no pieces of legislation, ordinances, or meeting minutes in regard to the authorization of the Flock Safety system."
City of North Canton's written response, June 25, 2026 read it
Just to be clear, nobody broke a rule. The contract came in under the dollar amount that triggers a Council vote.
But this means Council never got asked. No mayor signed either contract, and the current mayor took office in 2025, about a year and a half after the renewal. It just never had to be a public decision.
Council does approve the City budget every year. But approving a budget is not a vote on a surveillance network. The payments sit under a line item called Misc Services/Lease, and nothing in the record shows anyone ever flagged it as one.
what they cost
$51,167.81 so far
Four payments so far, about $25,000 still committed, and it renews itself unless somebody stops it.
| Year | Paid | What for |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | $14,250.00 | first year plus installation |
| 2024 | $11,917.81 | year 1 of the five year deal |
| 2025 | $12,500.00 | year 2 |
| 2026 | $12,500.00 | year 3 |
| Total | $51,167.81 |
Straight from the City's own payment ledger ledger, Flock's invoices, and the four purchase orders. POs Every dollar from the city budget.
Two payments haven't happened yet, roughly $12,500 each in 2027 and 2028. After that the contract renews itself for two more years unless somebody stops it.
Taxpayer funded, but not taxpayer approved.
who owns the data
On paper the City owns it. In practice it controls almost none of it.
The contract is clear on ownership: "all right, title and interest in the Agency Data, belong to and are retained solely by Agency." contract Here is what that gets us.
- Does the City hold the data? NO "does not host servers for ALPR generated data" · NCPD Policy 428.4
- Does the City decide how long it's kept? NO retention "is subject to the ALPR software company's data retention policy" · Policy 428.4
- Does the City own the devices? NO "shall remain the personal property of Flock" · 2022 agreement
- Does the City even have a copy of the rules? NO the signed renewal doesn't contain its own legal terms. It points to a page on Flock's website, and Flock rewrote that page in February 2026, two years after we signed
- Do Flock's rights end when the contract does? NO rights run "during and after the Term hereof" · §4.5
Our police department wrote it in its own automated license plate reader (ALPR) policy manual. It does not hold this data and does not set the clock on it. The company does. policy
And they can train AI on it. §4.5 lets Flock anonymize what our devices collect and use it "including the training of machine learning algorithms," under a right that runs "during and after the Term hereof." We can stop paying, the devices can come down, and that part continues. To be fair: the same contract bars Flock from selling it, three separate times. contract
why I think you should care
Where you've been doesn't stay in North Canton
1,920 organizations can search what our five cameras capture, and Ohio cities are hitting the brakes.
Flock's own product calls it "license plate location history." The department's network export, dated June 2026, lists 1,944 organizations. North Canton's network is shared with 1,920 of them. the raw file
Names in that file reference more than forty states. State police in New York, Indiana and Idaho. The Ohio Attorney General's office. Drug task forces. Campus police from Philadelphia to Virginia. Four entries carry Flock's own [Federal] label:
- [Federal] Wright Patterson OH Air Force Base
- [Federal] US Postal Inspection Service
- [Federal] Indiana Dunes National Park IN PD
- [Federal] Tennessee Valley Authority Police
The spreadsheet is linked above, feel free to scroll it yourself.
Ohio cities are already hitting the brakes
82 Flock contracts have been cancelled across 28 states between 2021 and May 2026, thirty nine of them in the first five months of 2026. the tally It's not a fringe position, and it's not just far away:
- Dayton, OH · Audited its Flock logs and found 7,100 searches citing immigration purposes, which its own policy banned. Program suspended, cameras bagged, independent audit underway. Their police chief's words: "It's not a system issue, it's an us issue." WOSU
- Cleveland, OH · A council committee voted to let its 100 cameras go dark, then Council extended six months while it decides. Either way: they're debating it, in public, right now. Cleveland 19
- Kent, OH · Looked at a Flock contract and said no thanks. Signal Ohio
- Columbus, OH · After an audit of who was searching its cameras, the Mayor ordered police to stop statewide sharing entirely, July 2026. WOSU
- Dane County, WI · Board voted 32 to 1 to cut Flock's $80,000, April 2026. The board later restored the money for a replacement system, on the condition the sheriff's office owns and controls all the data Dane County
- Oak Park, IL · Village Board voted 5 to 2 to cancel, August 2025 Wednesday Journal
- Cambridge, MA · Terminated for "breach of trust" after Flock installed devices the city never authorized Cambridge Day City statement
- Austin, TX · Ended the program June 2025. Every device on city land came down. KUT
Every one of those cities did something we haven't done yet: talked about it in public.
common questions
The questions I had too
Straight answers, sourced from the contracts.
Don't these cameras help catch criminals?
Sometimes, genuinely. Stolen cars, missing people. This isn't about whether our police are good or bad.
$51,167.81 for five surveillance devices we don't own, on a system we don't control, shared with nineteen hundred organizations, part of a national network, all decided without one public meeting… isn't worth renewing. You might read the same records and land somewhere else. That's fair.
Has anyone at North Canton PD broken the rules?
Not that I've found. I read every document the City gave me and found no evidence anyone at North Canton PD has misused this system.
What I can tell you is what the system has allowed elsewhere. The Electronic Frontier Foundation reviewed 12 million Flock searches across 3,900 agencies. They found searches tied to protests, searches using ethnic slurs, and a Texas deputy who searched 83,000 cameras looking for a woman who'd had an abortion. EFF Separate reporting has tracked officers using it on women: a Georgia police chief was arrested after women seeking protective orders said he used Flock to follow them, a Tennessee officer was indicted on 23 counts, and a Missouri officer ran one woman's plate nearly 400 times. reporting
That happened in departments that were also confident it wouldn't.
Don't the audit logs prevent misuse?
Flock's system logs every search with a stated reason, and our department's policy calls for logging every access and auditing regularly.
But every case of abuse also happened in a system with audit logs. Logs record misuse after the fact, and somebody has to read them. In Dayton the searches ran for years before anyone noticed, and the audit took months more. 7,100 in all.
How long does Flock keep the data?
The order form says 30 days, and the 2022 contract made it a promise: "Flock will automatically delete Footage older than thirty (30) days." contract
But deleted doesn't mean gone. The same contract lets Flock "store deleted Footage in order to comply with certain legal obligations," retrievable only with a court order, and with no time limit stated anywhere.
And the terms in force today aren't in the contract at all. They live on a Flock web page, rewritten in February 2026, two years after we signed. That version contains no promise to delete anything.
Aren't there only five cameras?
Five here. But the surveillance network is the product. North Canton's devices feed a system our department shares with nineteen hundred other organizations, and hundreds of theirs feed back.
Dane County, Wisconsin had twenty four devices shared with more than a hundred and forty agencies. They cut Flock anyway. Dane County
Do we even own the cameras?
No. "Flock Hardware shall remain the personal property of Flock." contract After $51,167.81 the City owns none of them. The flip side is good news: when the contract ends, Flock takes them down at no cost to us.
Where are the five cameras?
The City's records include site maps showing all five locations, one map per site. maps Flock drew up the placement plan back in 2022, and the maps in the records show where the five ended up. I'd rather point you at the originals than redraw them.
the exit clause
It ends with one letter
No lawsuit, no buyout, no penalty. Thirty days' written notice before the term ends.
The contract doesn't have to be broken, bought out, or fought over. There's an easy out, written into the contract itself.
"This Agreement will automatically renew … unless either Party gives the other Party notice of non-renewal at least thirty (30) days prior to the end of the then-current term."
2023 renewal contract · read it ↗
Thirty days' written notice before the term ends. No lawsuit, no buyout, no penalty. And Flock removes the hardware "at no additional cost to Agency." contract
what we can do
Two things, easiest first
Ten minutes total: send this to a neighbor, send one email to City Council.
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Send this page to one neighbor.
That's the big one. Nobody can weigh in on something they've never heard of.
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Email City Council.
One address reaches City Council: citycouncil@northcantonohio.gov. Say it however you want, your own words always beat a template. But if you'd rather just paste something, this is plenty:
I recently learned the City has had a Flock license plate camera contract since 2022, and that Council never voted on them because the contract fell under the threshold that would have required it. I don't think it should be renewed. Either way, I'd like it discussed at a public meeting before the term runs out. Thank you for your time.The Mayor's office doesn't publish a direct email. There's a contact form and a phone line, 330-499-8223.
all the receipts
Every document, unedited
Ninety five files, free to read. Don't take my word for anything.
I filed a public records request on June 19, 2026 under Ohio's Public Records Act. The City answered in four business days. Everything it released is here: contracts, invoices, purchase orders, emails, the policy, the sharing lists. Credit where it's due, the person who handled my request was fast and helpful.
The emails are unwrapped so they open, every file has a searchable text copy, and there's a short guide. Ninety five files in all.
Public records belong to you. Filing your own takes one email and costs nothing. Feel free to check my assumptions and do your own digging.