July 20, 2026
License to Lie?
Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public
Caught fibbing on car-tracking, then dragged by a public that saw it coming
TLDR: Flock Safety lost a city contract in just one day after officials said it gave false information about how its car-camera system tracks vehicles. Commenters were savage, with many saying the company was never trustworthy and others warning this is what happens when public surveillance keeps growing unchecked.
The biggest plot twist here? Almost nobody in the comments seems shocked. After the ACLU detailed how Flock Safety allegedly misled officials about what its car-camera system could do, readers responded with the kind of exhausted fury usually reserved for reality-show villains who get caught on camera and still deny everything. In Oshkosh, Wisconsin, city leaders approved Flock’s deal, then yanked it the very next day after learning the company’s claims about not making vehicle “heat maps” were false. That instant reversal had commenters basically saying: you mean this company had credibility to lose in the first place? One of the sharpest jabs was the deadpan, “Were they ever credible?”
The mood in the thread swings between cynical, angry, and darkly funny. Some readers see this as just another chapter in the never-ending rise of mass surveillance, with one commenter sighing that “the surveillance state is going away” is a fantasy. Others were more fired up about the bigger culture issue: if companies can shrug off false statements as tiny misunderstandings, what does truth even mean anymore? That frustration landed hard. And then came the spiciest joke of the bunch: if politicians want public cameras everywhere “for safety,” one commenter suggested they should volunteer their own homes first. Ouch. Add in complaints about unsafe pole installations and accusations that privacy concerns get treated like public relations glitches, and the community verdict is brutal: this isn’t a minor misunderstanding, it’s a trust collapse with receipts.
Key Points
- •The article says Flock Safety inaccurately told Oshkosh officials that its ALPR system did not create vehicle movement heat maps.
- •After learning that statement was false, the Oshkosh City Council reconvened and revoked its contract approval one day after approving it.
- •The article says Flock later admitted its system can generate a heat map showing where point-in-time images of a vehicle were captured for up to a month.
- •The article presents the Oshkosh case as part of a broader pattern of misleading statements about operations, privacy, safety, and data-sharing practices.
- •As another example, the article says Flock later acknowledged pilot-project contracts with CBP and DHS after earlier statements that federal access and contracts were not an issue.