Cleveland Rep. Shontel Brown and Texas Rep. Greg Casar are demanding that the FBI explain a plan to gain nationwide access to automatic license plate reader networks, pressing the bureau on how it would use, store and share data gathered from cameras like those already watching Cleveland's streets. The two Democrats set an October 16 deadline for FBI Director Kash Patel to respond, a request landing squarely in the middle of a monthslong local fight over the same surveillance technology.
Brown, who represents Warrensville Heights and serves as ranking Democrat on a House Cybersecurity, IT and Government Innovation subcommittee, wants safeguards built in before the FBI's access expands, according to Axios. The lawmakers argue that expanded federal access to networks operated by Flock and Motorola could enable near real-time surveillance of civilians, and they've flagged the possibility that the FBI could share collected data with ICE and Customs and Border Protection. Their push comes as Semafor reports the FBI's plan to acquire nationwide access to automatic license plate readers is already facing scrutiny from House Democrats, with Casar asking the bureau for information to support congressional oversight of how law enforcement uses the data.
What the FBI Is Reportedly Willing to Pay
The financial scale of the FBI's ambitions is notable: the bureau is reportedly willing to pay up to $36 million to access automated license plate reader data nationwide, according to Newsweek. The outlet reports the FBI is seeking a software-as-a-service vendor capable of letting investigators query collected plate reader data using a license plate number, vehicle description, time or date, and geolocation information.
That kind of searchable national database is precisely what has unsettled privacy advocates watching Cleveland's own Flock rollout. The city currently operates nearly 100 automatic license plate readers, cameras made by Flock Safety that have become a flashpoint in local politics over the past year.
Cleveland's Own Flock Fight Drags On
Cleveland City Council voted 9-6 to extend the city's Flock contract for six months at a cost of $125,000, according to Signal Cleveland. The city retains each Flock image for 30 days, officials have said, and police began blocking immigration-related searches in November, according to Police Chief Dorothy Todd, with access to the database further restricted since then.
Separately, the Cleveland Community Police Commission voted to pause the city's use of its automated license plate readers starting January 1, 2027, while a new policy is developed with community input. Commissioner Michael Nelson has said he believes the resolution is nonbinding and carries no legal force, the same outlet reports, leaving the pause's actual fate uncertain.
Cleveland's final Flock legislation bars sharing city data with another government or third party without a valid search warrant, unless otherwise required by law, according to Government Technology. The ordinance also requires a public transparency portal, quarterly reports to City Council, and a contract penalty of up to 25% for privacy or data-sharing violations.
Cleveland Heights Searches Draw Scrutiny
The debate has intensified in neighboring Cleveland Heights, which instituted its own guardrails restricting access to its Flock network. Cleveland Heights for Immigrant Rights says city records show 134 law enforcement agencies conducted more than 132,000 searches of the local Flock network during May and June, per the group's account cited by Axios. A Fox 8 report described a similar but not identical figure, citing protesters' claim that 134 police agencies conducted 130,000 searches of the city's data over two months — a discrepancy neither outlet has reconciled.
Local activist Mike Corradini has said there is no safe version of this contract, and the city should cancel it outright. Anti-Flock groups from Cleveland, Akron, Medina County and the Mahoning Valley contend the cameras are faulty, invasive and incompatible with the principles of a free society, and they want license plate readers banned altogether rather than merely regulated.
State Officials Push Back on Calls for a Ban
Not everyone in Ohio agrees a ban is the answer. Ohio Attorney General Andy Wilson has defended automatic license plate readers as valuable law-enforcement tools, writing that misuse of the technology is rare. “When used properly, Flock is one of the most valuable tools I have seen in my career,” Wilson wrote, according to WOSU. He has argued the Ohio General Assembly should criminalize misuse of Flock data the same way it criminalizes misuse of other law-enforcement technology, rather than banning the cameras outright.
That call for regulation rather than prohibition comes as four Republican-backed bills were introduced in the Ohio legislature in a single week, including proposals with 90-day and 10-day data-deletion requirements, the station reports. Ohio currently has no statewide rules specific to automatic license plate readers setting data-retention periods, search requirements, authorized recipients or auditing standards, according to Cleveland.com.
A National Pattern of Cities Pulling Back
Cleveland and Cleveland Heights are far from alone in grappling with these questions. At least 30 localities have deactivated their Flock cameras or canceled contracts since the beginning of 2025, according to NPR, even as Flock Safety maintains contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. NPR notes that Flock operates a national data network allowing police to query and track specific vehicles far beyond their own city limits — the same architecture now drawing congressional attention.
Santa Cruz's City Council voted to end its Flock contract entirely over concerns that local data was being shared with that national network, while Flagstaff removed its data from both Flock's national and statewide lookup systems and shortened its retention window from 30 days to 14. San Francisco police disabled access to their own Flock network after an audit found 299 improper inquiries over roughly a year — about 0.005% of all inquiries during that period — tied to out-of-state and federal agencies, according to NBC Bay Area.
Closer to home, more than 1,700 license plate readers now operate throughout Cuyahoga County across government and private networks, per Cleveland.com. Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther announced his own pause on Flock use in September, and the city began covering its cameras the very next day, according to WOSU — a sign that Cleveland's fight is part of a broader reckoning playing out across Ohio as the FBI's own ambitions for the technology head to Congress for a reckoning of their own.
