As Cleveland embraces police surveillance technology, critics eye the battle beyond Flock 

Cleveland’s recent debate over surveillance technology centered on license plate readers made by Flock Safety. The next round of the argument could be broader.

Following hours of hearings that featured support from law enforcement and criticism from civil liberties advocates, City Council in July extended Cleveland’s contract with Flock Safety — for another six months.

After that contract runs its course, Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration doesn’t appear ready to walk away from that technology or other forms of electronic surveillance. Last week, City Hall issued a request for proposals to provide Cleveland’s safety forces with license plate readers, gunshot sensors and drones.

Cleveland already uses this technology. But City Council had pressed the administration to seek out bids from more vendors who could offer the services.

Flock isn’t the only company that theoretically could bid on the work. There’s also Axon, the firm formerly known as Taser that supplies Cleveland police with body cameras and the Fusus software platform. Leonardo and Motorola market license plate readers. SoundThinking sells the ShotSpotter gunshot detection system that Cleveland currently uses. 

Opponents of license plate readers have focused their attention on Flock, even adopting group names that play off the company’s brand: DeFlock Lakewood, Flock No Cleveland and Shake Off Flock in Shaker Heights. 

But if Cleveland swaps vendors, that won’t satisfy those groups’ objections to high-tech license plate readers that photograph passing cars and categorize them in databases using artificial intelligence. 

“We see automated license plate technology writ large — and in fact like all AI-powered mass surveillance technology — as a huge problem,” Bryn Adams, a Flock No spokesperson, said in an interview. 

With Flock under scrutiny, its competitors may have flown under the radar. That could change. 

“It’s awesome that there’s been so much grassroots movement against Flock,” Adams said, “but I think we need to start expanding the conversation and understanding that, you know, this flashy tech startup is just the most visible symptom of a much, much deeper problem.”

Opponents of Flock and license plate readers from Cleveland, Lakewood, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights plan a conference this weekend to build support for their efforts. 

Council wanted City Hall to cast a wider net for police technology

Council Member Michael Polensek defends license plate readers and has long supported the city’s use of police technology, from body cameras to drones. As chair of council’s Safety Committee, he encouraged the Bibb administration to issue the request for proposals. 

Unlike the anti-surveillance activists, Polensek said that he saw Flock and not the technology itself as the problem. He credited license plate readers and traditional surveillance cameras with helping to identify people who committed crimes. 

“Why do I want cameras? Because they work,” he said. 

An earlier effort to replace ShotSpotter’s gunshot detection service with a Flock product without competitive bidding stalled. Polensek later criticized the administration for going around council to renew Cleveland’s ShotSpotter contract through the Board of Control. 

“I hope they’re doing it right this time,” he said in an interview. “We said go out, let’s see what other vendors are available, what other systems [are] out there…We have to make sure it integrates with all the existing systems that we have in place already.”

Cleveland indicated in the request for proposals that it is flexible in how it awards the contract for license plate readers, gunshot detection and drones. Applicants can bid on just one or two of those services. Or they can bid to provide them all. 

The license plate readers must be able to detect such features as car makes and models, license plates, bumper stickers and roof racks, according to the request.

The gunshot detection must be able to map suspected shots. The drones must upload flight logs to a public portal. All the technology should be able to connect into the city’s Fusus software.

Flock is a big player in Northeast Ohio, court records show

Flock has been a major supplier of license plate readers in the Cleveland area. There are as many as 1,636 Flock cameras in Cuyahoga County, according to a 2025 ruling by a federal judge in a case that unearthed a trove of local records. Most police departments in the county have a contract with Flock, the judge wrote. 

The Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department set up another network using the ELSAG license plate reader system sold by Leonardo, according to the order. The network is hosted by Chagrin Valley Dispatch. 

Cleveland selected Flock as its license plate reader provider in 2023 after receiving bids from several companies, including Axon and Insight LPR, IT Commissioner Larry Jones II told City Council last month. 

Other jurisdictions have parted ways with Flock and signed up with the competition. In Florida, the Pasco County sheriff is replacing Flock readers with technology offered by Axon, according to Tampa Bay 28. So has Benton County, Washington, the Tri-City Herald reported.

Cleveland’s safety director warned council in July that the six-month extension wouldn’t give the city enough time to vet a new vendor. The deadline to submit proposals is Sept. 8, and City Hall’s process for drafting contracts notoriously can be slow. 

“They have to do it quick, because we only gave them a six-month extension for the license plate readers,” Polsensek told Signal Cleveland, “and I’m not going to extend that.”