In a February 2026 update to its standard Terms & Conditions, Flock Safety modified several key provisions governing the use and ownership of license plate data. The revision notably removed a specific sentence stating that the company would not sell customer data, a move the company describes as an administrative effort to eliminate redundant language.
Additionally, the new terms introduce a perpetual license for Flock to use customer data for product development, a change that remains in effect even after a service agreement is terminated by a customer.
While Flock Safety maintains the change was a simple "administrative cleanup," privacy advocates warn it signals a fundamental shift in how the company may monetize the massive amounts of travel data it collects from public and private streets.
The Contractual Shift: Old vs. New
The primary point of contention is the removal of a "bright-line" prohibition on data sales. According to an analysis by the ACLU and recent contractual records, the previous and current versions of the terms differ significantly in their language regarding data ownership and monetization. Statement from the ACLU:
- Sale of data. Flock’s previous T&C stated flatly, “Flock does not own and shall not sell Customer Data.” That language is now absent from their T&C.
- Control over data. The new license, while granting formal legal “ownership” of data to the customer, grants the company “the exclusive right to determine and control the method, timing, format, and medium” of access to the data that supposedly belongs to the customer. HaveIBeenFlocked reports that Flock appears to be giving customers access not to raw footage but to altered, degraded, low-resolution copies of that data (which also lack metadata such as time stamps, which can be important). That would be a funny form of ownership.
- A perpetual license. The T&C now add a “perpetual” right for Flock to use customer data to “support and improve” its services — allowing the company to keep using driver surveillance data even after a town, city, or other customer has terminated its relationship with Flock and no longer has access to that data itself. Flock’s right to use such data would have no expiration date.
- Liability, termination, and arbitration provisions. The new contract also expands Flock’s protections against liability for willful misconduct or gross negligence, potentially shifting the costs of data breaches and other failures from the company to taxpayers. It also mandates private arbitration under Georgia law when there is a contract dispute, and makes it harder for customers to terminate Flock contracts, including when a town or city council votes not to approve a contract or fails to appropriate the funds for it, as nearly 50 cities have done in the past year alone.
Flock’s Defense: “Redundancy, Not Change”
Flock Safety has pushed back against allegations that it intends to sell driver data. In a company blog post, the company characterized the removal of the "no-sale" clause as an effort to reduce redundancy.
"We removed a sentence that previously stated ‘Flock shall not sell Customer Data’ because it was redundant, not because our position changed," the company stated. Flock argues that because the contract explicitly states that "all right, title, and interest in and to Customer Data belong to and are retained by the Customer," the company cannot sell what it does not legally own.
Flock’s CEO Garrett Langley has further defended the "perpetual license" for training data, claiming it is a "standard software industry provision" necessary for the continuous improvement of their AI and machine learning models.
Critics Warn of “Data Enclosure”
The ACLU and other privacy watchdogs aren't buying the redundancy argument. Jay Stanley, a Senior Policy Analyst at the ACLU, argues that by removing the explicit "no-sale" language and claiming exclusive control over the format of data access, Flock is effectively "enclosing" the data.
Critics point out three major risks in the new language:
- Devaluation of Ownership: While cities "own" the data on paper, Flock controls the medium. Reports suggest some customers are being given access only to low-resolution, metadata-stripped copies of footage, making it difficult for cities to move their data to a competitor.
- The Perpetual License: The new right to use data "perpetually" means that even if a city fires Flock over privacy concerns, Flock retains the right to use that city's historic travel data to train its commercial algorithms indefinitely.
- Future Monetization: Without an explicit "shall not sell" clause, critics fear Flock could eventually sell "insights" derived from the data, such as traffic patterns or demographic movements, to third-party advertisers or data brokers without technically selling the "raw data" itself.
As Flock Safety continues to expand its reach, the debate over who truly "owns" the digital footprint of every American driver is likely to move from the fine print of contracts into the halls of state legislatures.
Citations & Sources:
- ACLU: "Municipalities: Beware of Changes in Flock's Legal Terms," April 16, 2026.
- Flock Safety Official Blog: "Flock Provides Terms & Conditions Update," February 17, 2026.
- The Guardian: "'Creepy surveillance': why some cities are shutting down Flock cameras," April 6, 2026.
