Edgewood immediately paused its Flock Safety license plate camera program, city officials announced, putting the automated surveillance system on hold while department heads and the city council spend the next month weighing whether to keep it running at all. The Kenton County city of roughly 8,500 residents says the cameras will stay dark through a formal review period, with no decision expected before an October 5 city council meeting.
The move was detailed in a community statement from the City of Edgewood, first reported by LINK nky, which described the city's contracted system as a dual-use automated license plate reader and video camera system supplied by Flock Safety. Mayor John D. Link framed the pause as an attempt to balance two competing priorities. City officials say Link remains committed to keeping Edgewood — long regarded as one of Kentucky's safest communities — among the safest in the state, even as the cameras stay offline.
Edgewood's own statement, relayed through the city's Facebook page, acknowledges both sides of the debate directly. Officials say the cameras can help locate stolen vehicles, assist criminal investigations, and provide information that may identify vehicles connected to criminal activity. At the same time, the technology has prompted broader concerns about privacy, data sharing, surveillance, and misuse.
A Month-Long Review Before Any Vote
Department heads and the city council will spend the coming weeks reviewing current Flock camera policies and practices, according to the city's statement, with an eye toward possible changes to procedures or safeguards before any final decision. That decision — whether to resume, modify, or scrap the program — won't reach a council agenda until October 5. Residents and community visitors are being asked to weigh in before then by emailing feedback to [email protected], the sole channel the city has designated for public input during the review.
Edgewood's pause did not happen in a vacuum. It lands amid a broader statewide shift triggered by Kentucky's House Bill 58, which took effect July 15 after being signed into law in April. According to the Kentucky Legislative Research Commission, the law includes written ALPR policies, 90-day audit schedules, and visual confirmation of plate hits. The bill was sponsored by state Rep. John Hodgson.
Part of a Regional Wave Sweeping the Tri-State
Edgewood is far from alone. As 91.7 WVXU has reported, at least eight other Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky municipalities — Fort Thomas, Newport, Independence, Fort Mitchell, Erlanger, Taylor Mill, Oxford, and Pierce Township — have halted, paused, or terminated their own Flock camera programs since July. Hoodline's own coverage recently detailed how Pierce Township became the eighth Tri-State city to sever its Flock contract, joining several of the same Northern Kentucky towns named in Edgewood's regional context.
Across the river, Oxford, Ohio's city council voted 6-1 on August 18 to terminate its 14-camera Flock contract entirely after residents protested that their local driving data was accessible to more than 2,200 outside law enforcement agencies, per the same WVXU reporting. Oxford became the first Ohio municipality to abolish its program outright rather than simply pause it, a distinction that has fueled debate in neighboring communities weighing similar votes.
Misconduct Case Adds Urgency to the Debate
Public anxiety over unmonitored camera access intensified after Shively Police Officer Asad Zahir, in Jefferson County, was arrested on August 25 and charged with five counts of official misconduct and five counts of unlawful computer access. Authorities allege Zahir used his department's Flock system more than 2,000 times to stalk and harass a woman, according to WDRB. Hoodline previously reported on the officer's alleged 2,000-plus searches as the case drew national attention to how easily the technology can be turned against the public it's meant to protect.
Flock Safety had rolled out a voluntary AI-powered auditing tool in April, and Shively activated it on August 24, per reporting relayed through WCPO. Whether such vendor-side safeguards are enough to reassure Edgewood residents remains an open question the city has yet to answer.
The regional pushback has also reached Capitol Hill. On September 2, U.S. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, whose district includes Kenton County and Edgewood, co-introduced H.R. 10221, dubbed the Flock-Off Act, according to the Office of Congressman Thomas Massie. The bill concerns automated license plate readers and biometric surveillance cameras.
For a city that has long pointed to public safety as a point of civic pride, the coming month of review will test whether that safety record depends on the cameras or exists independent of them. The City of Edgewood says it supports its police department throughout the process and wants a final decision that balances public safety with individual privacy, based on feedback gathered before the October 5 meeting.
