Bend City Council has decided to turn off four AI-powered license plate cameras and not renew the city’s contract with the company, Flock Safety.

“This is on our agenda due to the issue being raised by our constituents,” Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler said at the city council meeting Wednesday.

Cities across Oregon and Washington have recently reversed course on using a technology called Automated License Plate Recognition due to criticisms that the cameras could be used to enable surveillance and immigration actions by federal agencies. Eugene, Springfield, Woodburn and Skamania County in Washington recently turned off their Flock cameras after public pressure. Residents voiced concerns about personal privacy protections and Flock’s data collection practices. Similar outcry also led Bend to ditch the camera system.

There have been significant public concerns around Flock Safety business practices, City Manager Eric King said at the meeting. “We share some of those concerns.”

By Thursday afternoon, the city had turned off four cameras, two on the north side and two on the south side of Bend. The Bend Police Department started using Flock about seven months ago.

“It is a powerful technology tool that allows us to more efficiently and effectively investigate and solve crimes,” Bend Police Department spokesperson Sheila Miller said in an email.

After King delivered the news that the cameras would be shut off, a few city meeting attendees erupted in applause and someone let out a small “woop.”

For weeks, online commenters have criticized the use of the cameras in a Bend community forum on the website Reddit. Kebler said that online activism, as well as people who attended meetings or submitted written comments to the city on the matter, pushed the conversation.

Miller said in an email the deactivated cameras will be uninstalled in the coming days. Bend won’t be renewing its contract with Flock Safety after a pilot program ends in May.

Flock data is not difficult to collect, according to a prominent YouTuber in a Dec. 22 video circulated by Bend Redditors.

“You don’t have to be an expert to find and gain access to this,” Benn Jordan reported with 404 Media. “You don’t even have to type anything in to see every single person, vehicle and activity that took place in these locations in the last 31 days.”

Flock Safety did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Critics of the company have frequently voiced fears that it’s used to aid federal law enforcement amid rising immigration arrests and deportations directed by the Trump administration.

Bend City Councilor Mike Riley raised concerns about data privacy and “what’s going on at the federal level, and compliance with sanctuary law.”

The Bend Police Department purchased the cameras using grant funds to help fight crime in the Central Oregon city. Miller told OPB in December that the department did not intend to turn off the cameras. At that point, they had been in use for about six months as part of a pilot program, she said.

Since community concern began in December, Bend has only shared its Flock data with other local law enforcement agencies, Miller said by phone. Before that, information was available statewide, and for the first three weeks of the pilot, the police department’s data was open to nationwide queries from other law enforcement agencies.

After Bend City Councilors’ unanimous decision this week, police Capt. Brian Beekman said the cameras helped the police department recover stolen vehicles and apprehend suspects involved with violent crimes.

“I certainly respect much of the input from the community and concerns, in my opinion, very valid concerns,” Beekman said, “but it’s incomplete without explaining some of the public safety benefits.”

In a statement on Thursday, Bend police called ALPR a valuable law enforcement tool.

“We will be looking for an alternate vendor that can provide similar technology,” according to the statement.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/08/bend-flock-cameras-ai-license-plate-camera-law-enforcement/