What we know about Flock license-plate reader cameras in Eugene

For months, people have packed public meetings with questions about Eugene’s license-plate reader cameras. On Wednesday, Oct. 8, the City Council will dig in.

The 57 license-plate reader cameras, announced in May, were rolled out in Eugene before the public or the city’s Police Commission were notified. Police have touted the cameras’ role in helping solve crimes, arguing that leveraging technology is essential for effective service, as other residents express privacy concerns and fears of misuse. 

Amid calls to end the city’s contract for the cameras, city councilors will discuss the technology with Eugene Police Chief Chris Skinner during a virtual meeting Wednesday at noon.

Councilors are set to evaluate community concerns about the cameras, review current practices and consider policy options to ensure oversight, transparency and the protection of civil liberties, according to the meeting agenda.

The city of Springfield has also installed the cameras and its City Council has scheduled an Oct. 20 work session to discuss them.

Ahead of Wednesday’s meeting, here’s what we know about the cameras watching Eugene’s roads:

What is Flock? 

Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based surveillance technology company founded in 2017, makes the license-plate reader cameras that Eugene and Springfield police are now using. 

The company has sold products to about 5,000 law enforcement agencies across 49 states; 1,000 businesses, including FedEx and Lowe’s; and schools, homeowners associations and private residents.

Oregon cities like Florence and Albany use Flock’s license-plate reader cameras, as well as several cities in Washington and California.

What are Flock’s license-plate reader cameras?

The company says its motion-activated cameras snap still photos — from up to 75 feet away — to “focus solely” on a vehicle and its rear license plate. Solar panels and rechargeable batteries power the cameras, which are usually mounted to street poles.

The cameras use infrared technology, which means objects that aren’t reflective or illuminated will appear completely dark in footage, according to Flock.

Flock’s system uses something the company calls VehicleFingerprint, which uses artificial intelligence to analyze the footage. It identifies license plates and other vehicle information and logs the information in an online database.

The cameras can identify vehicle body types — including motorcycles and bicycles — as well as make, model, color and signs of damage or alteration.

The online database compares captured license plates with the National Crime Information Center database and the Amber Alert system, which is hosted by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 

If a match is found, Flock flags it as a “hotlist” hit and immediately triggers an alert to authorized users such as police, meaning they get near-real-time notification when a wanted or stolen vehicle passes a camera.

The cameras are not designed to capture faces, people, gender or race, the city says. 

“Since the cameras are motion-activated, they may register the presence of nonvehicle objects (such as a pedestrian, bicycle or animal), but there is no way to search the system for people or animals,” Flock Public Relations Manager Paris Lewbel told Lookout Eugene-Springfield.

He added: “Flock does not have facial recognition technology and does not have any such technology in development.”

Flock also offers FreeForm, an AI tool that allows customers of video-enabled license-plate reader cameras to search for human characteristics like gender and clothing. Flock announced in June that every existing Flock license-plate reader camera can soon be upgraded to video-enabled status.

Where did the cameras come from?

The city paid for the cameras using a $391,264 grant awarded in July 2024 from the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission’s Organized Retail Theft grant program, which funds local law enforcement efforts to combat organized retail theft. 

City Manager Sarah Medary signed the contract with Flock on March 24, 2025, records show, though the city began researching the technology in 2024.

How much did they cost?

Eugene signed a $342,000, two-year contract with Flock Safety for 57 Falcon cameras.

The city paid $171,000 in March and another $171,000 in June. Flock provided a $28,300 professional services discount, according to the contract.

Who does Eugene share its Flock data with?

Though all footage is stored in Flock’s online database, not the city’s, Flock says its customers decide who to share that data with — from nearby police departments to federal agencies.

Twenty-one law enforcement agencies in Oregon currently have access to Eugene’s Flock data: 13 municipal police departments, six sheriff’s offices, one tribal police force and the Washington County District Attorney’s Office, per Eugene Police Department’s “transparency portal,” which compiles some department usage data. 

The department says it will share data only with Oregon law enforcement and continue to comply with the state’s sanctuary law, which bars local cooperation with federal immigration law enforcement.

Skinner, the Eugene police chief, said last month that the city is adjusting its contract with Flock to clarify data-sharing and security terms.

An archived version of EPD’s Flock data portal from late June shows the city previously shared data with police departments in Washington, California and Nevada. In July, the list was briefly removed, then re-uploaded showing only Oregon agencies, web archives show.

Eugene Police Capt. Jake Burke said in July that when Eugene’s cameras first went live, the city received nationwide data access requests — including from federal agencies, which it declined — and initially shared data regionally, before limiting access to Oregon.

How does EPD use the cameras?

​​The department will use the technology to identify stolen or wanted vehicles, missing people and stolen license plates, and to aid investigations involving warrants, surveillance, suspect interdiction — the act of locating and stopping suspects of criminal activity, often to prevent or interrupt a crime in progress — and stolen property recovery, according to police’s policy.

Eugene police’s investigations captain, currently Burke, will oversee the system and assign personnel to manage daily operations.

The policy specifies that Eugene police:

• May use license-plate reader cameras during routine patrols or investigations, and to canvass around crime scenes, shootings or major incidents
• Do not need reasonable suspicion or probable cause before using the license-plate reader system
• Must complete department-approved training before using the system
• Should verify alerts from the license-plate reader system with the Law Enforcement Data System — a statewide criminal justice information network — before acting on them “when reasonable”
• Should not access Law Enforcement Data System data unless otherwise authorized to do so

The Police Commission in July unanimously tabled a vote on approving the policy because it needed more work, the body’s chair said at the time. Members delayed it again in September, because the city’s ongoing contract negotiations could alter the policy.

Unlike neighboring Springfield, the city of Eugene has not published a list of camera locations because of concerns of possible criminal mischief, though residents have begun mapping them online.

An EPD spokesperson said in May that the department is avoiding residential neighborhoods areas and focusing on coverage of main streets of travel and points of ingress and egress to the city.

What does usage data show?

According to Eugene police’s transparency portal as of Tuesday, officers made 848 searches in the last 30 days, and the system detected 510,531 unique vehicles.

There were 5,446 license-plate matches with databases like the National Crime Information Center and Amber Alert system.

Additional raw portal data shows:

• “Person Crime” is the most frequent search category, followed by “Property Crime” and “Unauthorized Use of a Vehicle”
• Search activity is higher in the evening and night, with peak searches occurring between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Between May and Sept. 1, 2025, Flock cameras in Eugene assisted in 64 investigations, leading to 43 arrests, 84% of them felonies, EPD spokesperson Melinda McLaughlin said.

“We’re in the crime-fighting business, and this community is asking us to fight crime and solve crime, and we need to leverage technology to be able to do that,” Skinner said in September. “And this is a really important piece of technology that lets us do that.”

How does data privacy work? 

The city of Eugene owns all footage and data captured by Flock cameras. Flock cannot sell or claim ownership of it, according to the service agreement. 

All images, videos and metadata are stored for 30 days on Amazon Web Services cloud servers, after which they’re automatically deleted on a rolling basis.

If Eugene authorizes data-sharing with outside systems or agencies, Flock can retain and distribute footage beyond the 30-day limit, but only with explicit city approval.

However, Flock may disclose footage to law enforcement, government officials and third parties if required by law, or if the company has a “good faith belief” that such data-sharing is “reasonably necessary” for legal, security and emergency reasons, the agreement states.

When asked for clarification on this clause, Lewbel, the Flock spokesperson, told Lookout: “Any legal requests received by Flock are immediately forwarded to the agency that owns the data. Flock does not release or access customer footage without the agency’s authorization or a valid legal requirement.”

Burke said in July that if the city received a subpoena — for example, related to immigration — the city’s legal team would determine what information to release.

The agreement also gives Flock the right to collect anonymized customer data for algorithm training and improvements.

U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden in July announced plans for additional privacy filters on Flock systems in Eugene and Springfield to prevent out-of-state agencies from requesting data tied to immigration or abortion.

Earlier this year, 404 Media reported that Immigration and Customs Enforcement had obtained data from Flock systems by asking local police to perform lookups on its behalf, including one instance in Medford, Oregon. 

Who was consulted about the cameras?

Eugene police moved to adopt the license-plate reader cameras without informing the public. Members of the city’s Police Commission — which advises the council, police chief and the city manager on police policy and resource issues — said they were not consulted. 

During a June meeting, some commissioners raised questions about being left out of the loop, which Skinner attributed to tight grant spending deadlines.

“From time to time, I’m going to be a little bit strategic on keeping the momentum of a project moving because we had a really short period of time to be able to spend this money,” he explained, referencing the June 30 grant deadline.

Eugene city councilors did not vote to approve the plan. 

Councilor Randy Groves, who sits on the Police Commission along with Councilor Jennifer Yeh, said in June that he did know about the plan “probably through council,” and that the contract was “vetted in great detail.”

Yeh, who called for this week’s work session on the cameras, said at a Sept. 8 council meeting dominated by public opposition: “I will admit that I did not educate myself to the level that I should have, and I’m learning a lot right now.”

At a Sept. 22 council meeting, Councilor Matt Keating said: “I look forward to hearing what off-ramps there are in regards to not renewing [the contract]. I look forward to what off-ramps there might be in regards to the current contract.”

What do Eugene residents have to say?

Since the rollout, dozens of residents have crowded City Council and Police Commission meetings to oppose the license plate reader cameras and the city’s lack of public input.

Residents have raised concerns about a private company controlling sensitive data, the potential for disproportionate policing of marginalized groups and broader civil liberties issues. ACLU Oregon has opposed Flock’s license-plate reader systems.

During the Sept. 22 council meeting, councilors extended public comment — a rare move — to let everyone speak.

Many urged councilors to cancel or pause the contract, citing cities like Austin, Texas, and Denver, Colorado, that have ended theirs due to privacy concerns.

A citizen group called Eyes Off Eugene has launched a petition with more than 1,700 signatures calling for the contract’s termination.

The petition argues that there’s no evidence that license-plate reader cameras reduce crime, pointing to statistics that the cameras misidentify plates in 10% of cases and increase violent encounters between police and civilians. 

“A contract with Flock is not in Eugene’s interest,” Eyes Off Eugene’s petition states.