Scottsdale Mayor Lisa Borowsky wants the City Council to take a hard look at the city's Flock license plate camera program, a network of 85 cameras that has quietly tracked vehicles around the city since 2023 without ever facing a formal council vote. The council agreed to place a presentation, discussion and possible action on the entire program on the agenda for a public meeting on Oct. 6.
Borowsky said she has her own concerns about the technology but has not made up her mind about what should happen next. “I haven't decided yet, so I don't want to commit to my position,” she told azfamily.com. ABC15 quoted her saying the conversation should be shared with the public so everyone understands what is going on with the cameras, which have become a flashpoint in cities across Arizona.
The push for review follows months of pressure from residents who, according to seed reporting from ABC15 Arizona, have demanded answers about the cameras tracking vehicles throughout the city. Resident Patti Badenoch has advocated for a ban on public organizations like Flock, per that report, while Eric Fowler requested a council discussion about the cameras last year and argued the program bypassed proper oversight, noting it had never received a council vote.
Police Defend the Cameras as a Public Safety Tool
Scottsdale police have pushed back hard on the criticism, describing the cameras as an effective and legal tool. “Flock cameras have proven to be an extraordinarily effective and legal tool for Scottsdale,” the department said, according to the same azfamily.com report. Police maintain the ALPR program is not a mass-surveillance system and say it operates under strict policies, retention limits and oversight.
A police memo described the cameras as a crucial public safety tool, according to ABC15's reporting, and the department said it has credited the cameras with more than 200 felony arrests. Lottie Kimball, who represents the Scottsdale Fraternal Order of Police, said the cameras help locate violent offenders. The police chief has also offered to provide the council with a memo summarizing the department's checks and balances against abuse, azfamily.com reported.
New Safeguards on the Table
City leaders are weighing several changes to the program alongside the council review. Scottsdale police and city leaders have promised new safeguards, including an independent city audit, an ordinance establishing criminal penalties for intentional misuse of the cameras, and a public transparency website explaining how the system works, per ABC15's reporting.
Officials are also planning to evaluate alternative vendors to determine whether another company could offer equal or better public safety capability while giving the city more control over its data, according to the same reporting. Scottsdale currently stores camera data for about six months, and city leaders plan to explore reducing that retention period without hurting police investigations.
Council members have said they are not questioning the public safety benefits of the cameras but agree that a public conversation is overdue. Nationally, Flock Safety partners with 5,000 law enforcement agencies, converting vehicle photographs into searchable data that includes vehicle details and location, according to KTAR News. Scottsdale had conducted more than 12,000 searches of the shared Flock database as of February, when South Tucson ended its own Flock contracts, per the lookoutnews.org report.
Other Arizona Cities Have Already Pulled the Plug
Other Arizona Cities Have Already Pulled the Plug Scottsdale is far from alone in wrestling with the technology. As of August, six Arizona cities and Pinal County had terminated their Flock Safety contracts entirely, according to the lookoutnews.org report. Several of those decisions followed internal audits that flagged potential misuse by law enforcement personnel, KTAR News reported.
Payson ended its Flock agreement after an administrative review found residents were no longer comfortable with the cameras and that the technology did not meet the town's expectations, according to KTAR News. That same review flagged transparency and administrative concerns because Flock could not provide a static, formatted policy document addressing public-records obligations and internal oversight — even though Payson officials acknowledged the cameras had helped identify a suspect vehicle, establish its movement and narrow down a suspect's location. Cottonwood, meanwhile, suspended its own Flock cameras and discussed the issue at a city council work session earlier this week.
Scottsdale is not the only Arizona city whose officials have defended the technology. Goodyear City Council member Trey Terry has defended the cameras.
Scottsdale's own council will get its chance to weigh in when the Flock item comes up for presentation, discussion and possible action, with the mayor framing the moment as an overdue opportunity for residents to see exactly how the cameras are being used across the city.
