Bellevue's city council voted unanimously Wednesday to disable the city's Flock Safety camera system, choosing to cover the lenses rather than rip out the hardware while officials figure out what to do with more than a year still left on the contract. The move adds Bellevue to several Northern Kentucky cities that have suspended, terminated, or refused to renew a Flock license-plate reader program amid mounting privacy concerns.
The vote came after Bellevue City Council Member Kelly Harp said she had opposed the cameras since they were first proposed, telling residents in a Facebook post that she preferred immediate removal of the equipment, according to WLWT. Fellow council member Shauna Kruse pushed instead for the compromise of suspending and physically covering the cameras rather than demanding outright removal. Kruse said she still supports local police but noted that “the reputation of the Flock camera company is pretty sullied right now,” pointing to the absence of state or federal usage guidelines, according to LINK nky. Residents at the meeting applauded the decision to disable and cover the hardware, per the same report.
A Contract With No Cheap Exit
Bellevue's Flock deal is a two-year, $43,000 contract with more than a year remaining before it expires, and city officials noted that physically removing the hardware early could trigger higher removal fees, the outlet reports. That financial reality is part of why the council chose suspension over teardown — the city says it will now evaluate how to minimize the financial loss while it works out next steps for the program.
Harp and Kruse both said the vote followed concerns raised by numerous residents, and Harp called the suspension an important step in the right direction while Bellevue evaluates what comes next, per WLWT's report. Opponents of the technology have questioned how the systems are used and who is able to access the data they collect, while proponents point to the cameras' impact on public safety investigations.
Northern Kentucky's Domino Effect
Bellevue is not acting alone. The city now stands among several Northern Kentucky municipalities that have suspended, terminated, or refused to renew Flock programs, according to LINK nky's reporting. Newport was reportedly among the first in the region to drop its pilot program, ending it in July after public criticism aired during a town hall.
Just across Boone County, Florence Mayor Julie Metzger-Aubuchon announced this month that the city is temporarily deactivating its 10 Flock cameras while a joint task force with the Boone County Sheriff's Office reviews data collection practices and public safety benefits, LINK nky reports. Florence had operated the cameras under a contract signed in September 2025. Independence Police, meanwhile, had equipped patrol cruisers with Flock license-plate reader technology back in 2024, according to Hoodline's prior coverage of the department.
Frankfort and Washington Weigh In
The local backlash is unfolding alongside a statewide reckoning in Frankfort. During a hearing on September 3, the Kentucky General Assembly's Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary heard bipartisan testimony from lawmakers pushing for mandatory search warrants and stricter guardrails on license plate readers, according to the Kentucky Lantern. Lawmakers cited concerns over out-of-state access to the databases and potential misuse.
Kentucky House Bill 58 took effect in July as the Commonwealth's first statutory framework governing automated license plate readers, setting data retention limits and restricting system access to legitimate law enforcement investigations, the Lexington Times reports. Civil liberties groups, including the ACLU of Kentucky, have pushed to amend the law further, advocating for retention limits as short as 48 hours. A separate March 2025 amendment to Kentucky's Open Records Law, enacted through House Bill 520, has also made it easier for police departments to withhold public records requests seeking the exact physical locations of Flock cameras, a change privacy advocates say has fueled public frustration over hidden surveillance networks, according to FOX 56 News.
Northern Kentucky's own congressional delegation has joined the pushback. U.S. Representative Thomas Massie introduced federal legislation this year dubbed the “Flock-Off Act,” which would bar federal funding from being used to install or maintain automated license plate readers, the Kentucky Lantern reports.
Vendor Under Pressure Nationwide
Facing cancellations from cities across the country, Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley announced on August 13 that the company is cutting its default data retention period from 30 days to seven days and will make case-code logging and automated misuse audits mandatory by the end of 2026, according to Police1. The company reported that more than 90% of non-full-plate police queries already occur within seven days of capture.
Bellevue's move also lands amid other cancellations in Greater Cincinnati and broader national reconsideration of Flock contracts. Just across the river, Lebanon, Ohio, unanimously voted this week to remove all 20 of its Flock cameras after the vendor failed to answer 54 written questions from the city, as Hoodline reported in its coverage of Lebanon's decision, part of a tally of more than 50 U.S. jurisdictions that have dropped or suspended Flock contracts this year.
Flock Safety has updated its retention and audit policies. For now, Bellevue's council has said only that it plans to discuss next steps for the program while it works to limit the city's financial exposure on a contract it can't yet walk away from cheaply.
