Earlier this week, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb announced that he would hand over the decision on whether or not to renew the city’s contract with Flock, the controversial license plate and surveillance tech company, to City Council. Bibb had previously bypassed the body to use the city’s Board of Control to authorize a contract renewal with ShotSpotter.
The mayor, however, believes it should go forward, calling it a vital tool for law enforcement and investigation tool. But:
“We believe this approach appropriately honors the oversight role of Council and ensures the community has a meaningful opportunity to weigh in on this public safety tool and concerns about privacy and civil liberties,” Bibb wrote to council.
Concerns that were on display on the steps of City Hall on Wednesday as Flock No, a group of anti-surveillance activists, held a press conference to urge Council to reject the contract renewal on a host of civil liberty and privacy grounds.
Pleas that have intensified in the past year or so. Public records have shown—in Shaker Heights and Cleveland Heights—that police departments have allowed out-of-town officers access to their license plate readers for immigration searches and vague reasons.
From December 2025 through April 2026, hundreds of thousands of searches were made of Shaker Heights’ Flock data. While the vast majority of lookups were for serious crimes, 273 were made citing “immigration” and 130 for “civil/administrative” reasons.
Recent reports show immigration-related searches were made of Cleveland’s Flock data, though the city claimed its Flock settings prevented authorities making those queries from returning any results.
Still, the system presents a worrisome overreach of private data with little safeguards, Flock No activists said. Other groups in Solon, Olmsted Township, Lakewood and Brunswick have echoed the same anxieties in the past few months.
“I’m not comfortable knowing that my movements over the last month can be reconstructed in very great detail at any given time,” Bryn Adams, a member of Flock No, said on Wednesday.
“The government should not know when I have doctor’s appointments, whether I frequent certain places of worship, which stores I tend to shop at, or whose houses I’m visiting,” she added.
Cleveland has 100 Flock license plate readers, typically abbreviated as ALPRs. The cameras capture plate numbers, along with any car damage or bumper stickers—data that is stored for about a month. If the city has opted into a National Lookup system, any law enforcement officer across the country can initiate a search of the data.
Besides allegedly using the tech to track abortion patients, cops have used Flock to “stalk and harass” neighbors in suburban Georgia, track exes and their new boyfriends in Kansas, and keep tabs on girlfriends in Milwaukee. Activists have also raised concerns about data sharing with ICE.
A fact that Rebecca Garcia, a Flock No member and daughter of Colombian immigrants, made a point to emphasize: ICE could possibly be using Cleveland’s Flock ALPR network to track immigrants for non-criminal reasons.
“I urge our city’s leaders to reject the expansion of these systems, increase transparency and accountability around data sharing practices,” she said, “and prioritize policies that protect the civil liberties and human rights of all Clevelanders.”
The deadline to submit legislation to consider a Flock renewal at City Council is June 1, with Flock’s current contract ending on June 28.
Council typically goes on summer recess in early June, which means its Safety Committee must hold a special meeting to entertain such legislation at the eleventh hour. Safety Committee Chair Mike Polensek told Signal Cleveland that council absolutely has jurisdiction on the matter. “It’s called oversight, and I don’t give a frick or frack who doesn’t like it.”
Council President Blaine Griffin likewise said it’s the proper process: “I don’t mind the we have the chance to have a rigorus debate about it, becaues that’s what the public wants.”
New councilmember Tanmay Shah is among those who oppose the measure, saying in a recent council proceeding that, “we’re creating a digital dragnet that’s capturing residents’ data that can be used for everything. not just immigration. but abortion healthcare access.”
Those interested can read more on Flock No and its petition to end the city’s contract here.
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