AG Mayes to examine Flock surveillance cameras and Arizonans’ privacy rights

Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes announced her office will review Flock Safety's AI-powered license plate readers and similar systems, producing a report for the governor and legislature on their privacy and Fourth Amendment implications. The move follows multiple Arizona cities canceling Flock contracts amid reports of misuse, including an Apache Junction officer who used the system to track his wife — though that department is keeping its contract despite the incident.

Flock claims over 80,000 cameras across more than 5,000 communities in 49 states; documented misuse elsewhere includes Texas police using the network to search for a woman who had obtained a legal out-of-state abortion. Tempe's police department just dropped Flock entirely with no replacement planned, while other cities switching vendors are often just moving to Scottsdale-based Axon or similar competitors rather than dropping license plate tracking altogether.

Two legislative attempts to regulate the technology both failed this year — one, backed by law enforcement, would have shielded ALPR data from public records requests; the other would have required supermajority local voter approval, effectively banning it. It remains unclear whether Mayes' review will touch the federal government's own covert plate-reader network reportedly running from the southern border into Maricopa County.

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