Ulster County will not be installing Flock cameras or any other AI-assisted surveillance technology anytime soon — not that it had any to begin with. County Executive Jen Metzger signed an executive order Thursday that bars county departments and employees under her authority from purchasing, contracting for, or deploying Flock cameras and similar AI-assisted tools, effective immediately.
The order, reported by the Daily Freeman, prohibits the use of any service provided by Flock Safety along with comparable technologies capable of vehicle or person reidentification. It also stops county departments from letting outside vendors or contractors run those tools on the county's behalf, according to Mid Hudson News. Notably, there were no Flock cameras anywhere in Ulster County when Metzger signed the order, and the county was not using any of the AI-assisted technologies the order targets.
Why Ban Something the County Never Had?
Metzger's order frames the ban as preemptive, citing significant privacy, security and civil liberties concerns tied to the technology, per Mid Hudson News. The order carves out one major exception: it does not reach the Ulster County Sheriff's Office or any other agency operating outside the county executive's authority, meaning sheriff's deputies could still pursue the technology independently if they chose to.
They haven't. Ulster County Sheriff Juan Figueroa issued his own statement backing Metzger's move, telling the Daily Freeman, “I support County Executive Metzger's Executive Order prohibiting Flock and AI-assisted surveillance.” That endorsement lines up with decisions the Sheriff's Office had already made on its own in the weeks before the order.
Sheriff's Office Scraps Two Separate Tech Plans
The Sheriff's Office wrapped up a 90-day pilot of an Axon AI-assisted report-writing system on October 9 and decided not to move forward with it, the Daily Freeman reported. Separately, the office canceled plans to add more Motorola automatic license plate reader cameras, though it will keep using the ones it already has. The report notes the decision not to expand ALPR coverage was influenced by concerns raised by the public.
Kingston, meanwhile, already runs its own automatic license plate reader systems around four school zones to enforce traffic violations, a separate use of the technology that falls outside the scope of Metzger's order.
Part of a Wider Hudson Valley Pushback
Ulster County's move follows a string of similar fights playing out across the region. The Newburgh City Council voted on September 29 to end its contract with Flock Safety after months of debate, according to WAMC. Newburgh's resolution requires the city to discontinue routine use of its Flock cameras within 14 days of adoption and to take all legal steps to dissolve its contracts with the company. WAMC's report also points to national controversy fueling the backlash, including reports that law enforcement members elsewhere allegedly used Flock cameras to spy on friends and family, including in Albany County.
In Poughkeepsie, the fight is still unresolved. A majority of the Common Council voted to end all city contracts with Flock Safety, which supplies the city's license plate readers and gunshot detection devices, according to Mid Hudson News. Mayor Yvonne Flowers has announced her intention to veto that resolution. The city's existing Flock contract is scheduled to run through January 2027, and the system's planned expansion includes installing speed cameras and red-light cameras that same year.
