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DeFlock St. Pete takes camera fight to City Council
“I want them to listen to their constituents.”
A newly formed St. Petersburg group is asking City Council to end the city’s contract with Flock Safety and remove roughly 50 automated license plate readers from city streets.
DeFlock St. Pete’s first public meeting Aug. 15 at the Barack Obama Library drew more than 100 people, according to the organization, with some attendees turned away after the meeting reached capacity.
Organizer Zach Schira said the group’s concern is not simply that St. Petersburg police can search license plates. It is the amount of information collected, where it goes and how much residents know about who can access it.
“They are cameras that scan the license plate of every passing car,” Schira told the Catalyst. “They uniquely ID your car and that data all feeds into a centralized database that tracks people without the requirement of a warrant.”
“We are asking the city to remove their contract with Flock and the 50 cameras around the city.”
St. Petersburg approved a roughly $730,000 agreement with Flock for 50 cameras in 2024, according to records. The agreement followed a pilot program that began in 2022.
Rather than recording only vehicles suspected of involvement in a crime, the automated license plate readers (ALPR) cameras capture license plate information from vehicles that pass within their field of view.
Police can then search the system during investigations, and that ability has made Flock increasingly useful to law enforcement and increasingly controversial among privacy proponents. The argument now reaching St. Petersburg City Council is over how far that investigative usefulness should extend, and whether existing safeguards provide enough protection against misuse.
Flock has shortened its default data-retention period and implemented additional safeguards. St. Petersburg police have also said searches are audited and that improper use can result in disciplinary actions.
Schira says that isn’t enough: “There could be a world where if this was treated like other technologies,” he said. “But this would require judiciary powers to change. It’s a system overseen by a private company that can perform mass surveillance.”
Schira said the DeFlock group has sought records showing who accesses St. Petersburg’s system and what officers are searching for, but has not received the level of transparency that would ameliorate privacy concerns.
“St. Pete Police will not allow us to see access logs, who’s using Flock and what they are searching for,” Schira said. “Even with these changes there is such a lack of accountability and oversight. I’m not comfortable with these cameras anywhere in our city.”
The group has also focused on a second issue: how far information collected in St. Petersburg can travel once it enters the Flock system. Through public records requests, Schira said DeFlock obtained agreements related to the city’s use of Flock and a list of agencies with which data can be shared. He claims that he found St. Petersburg shares information with hundreds of agencies.
Among them, he said, is the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
DeFlock has raised concerns that information could move beyond the agencies St. Petersburg directly authorizes. Schira pointed to reports involving FWC and federal immigration authorities (ICE) as an example.
How much control does the city retain over information collected by cameras that residents’ taxes pay to operate?
Councilmember Richie Floyd has been supportive of the effort to further examine Flock, and is bringing that discussion before City Council Thursday as an agenda item.
DeFlock argues that residents should have been informed and given time to deliberate before the cameras were deployed. DeFlock’s website states that the 2024 agreement went through City Council’s consent agenda without discussion or public input.
“People are frustrated that this has been a behind-closed-doors process so far,” Schira said.
The organization is asking residents to contact all council members and request that the city cancel the agreement and remove the cameras. The campaign comes as some of the cameras themselves have become targets.
Flock cameras around St. Petersburg have been vandalized, but Schira said DeFlock does not support damaging them.
“We are not looking to vandalize cameras,” he said. “It’s not an effective strategy. Taxpayers are on the hook to replace it, and they will be back up in a couple days.”
“I understand why many councilmembers want to defer to the expertise of the police,” Schira added, “but I want them to listen to their constituents, too.”
