6 Oct 30th-NOv 5th, 2025 phoenixnewtimes.com PHOENIX NEW TIMES | NEWS | FEATURE | FOOD & DRINK | ARTS & CULTURE | MUSIC | CONCERTS | CANNABIS | Big Brother Tempe faces call to remove AI cameras that track where you’ve been. BY TJ L’HEUREUX A nationwide network of surveillance cameras is surreptitiously tracking your movements, including when you drive through Tempe. What’s more, federal agents have been documented using that network to track down people they want to deport. Now a Tempe City Council candidate is pushing the city to end its contract with Flock Safety, the company that makes the cameras and provides them to cities, law enforcement agencies and businesses. On Oct. 16, Bobby Nichols spoke out against the cameras and Flock — which was recently caught being less-than-trans- parent about allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies to access their data — at the coun- cil’s most recent public meeting. “I am particularly opposed to Tempe’s contract with Flock,” Nichols told the council during the public comment portion of the meeting, “as it poses an unreasonable risk to the safety and well-being of more than 40,000 Hispanic and Latino residents of Tempe, who are already facing a rampant and unwarranted increase in searches, seizures, detentions and deportations.” Flock’s surveillance cameras are like something out of George Orwell’s “1984.” They use AI-powered technology to scan the license plate of every car they encounter and upload it into a massive database, though the company says scanned license plates are deleted after 30 days. The cameras — called automatic license-plate readers, or ALPRs — can also identify cars by their make and model and can even scan bumper stickers. The cameras allow authorities — usually local governments — to track anyone they want, and there seem to be few guardrails. News outlets have docu- mented a Texas law enforcement agency using the readers to track the movements of a woman who had an abortion. Other local agencies have performed lookups on behalf of immigration authorities. Even if the Tempe Police Department doesn’t use their ALPR cameras to track someone for sketchy reasons, someone tapping into the wider Flock network may scan the images Tempe’s cameras have captured. An Oct. 16 letter from Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden to Flock, explaining how he’d be urging Oregon municipalities to cancel their Flock contracts, laid out the concerns about Flock. “Flock operates the largest network of surveillance cameras in the United States, reportedly contracting with more than 5,000 police departments, 1,000 busi- nesses, and numerous homeowners associ- ations across 49 states,” Wyden wrote. “In August, Flock informed my office that 75% of its law enforcement customers have enrolled in the ‘National Lookup Tool,’ which permits any other enrolled customer to search data collected through their cameras.” Tempe spokesperson Kris Baxter-Ging told Phoenix New Times that the city is not sharing its data through this “National Lookup Tool,” but that it can access data from other cities. Public records obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation earlier this year showed Tempe officers searching data collected by cameras associ- ated with other law enforcement agencies. (None of the searches appeared to be for immigration purposes.) The data showed that Tempe was able to search more than 6,000 camera networks, containing data from even more ALPR cameras. A Flock backlash Baxter-Ging also said that Tempe “is not sharing information with ICE or HSI,” adding that the city’s Data Governance Committee would review the contract. ICE does not have a Flock contract, though related agencies — including >> p 8 An automated license plate reader sits inside a fake cactus at a Paradise Valley roundabout. (Jerod MacDonald-Evoy/Arizona Mirror) | NEWS |
