Summary
Flock Safety’s official response to questions about ICE data sharing. The company explicitly denies any contract or data-sharing relationship with ICE or DHS sub-agencies, states that customer agencies own and control all data, and confirms that agencies are contractually prohibited from using Flock data for immigration enforcement. Documents a detailed timeline of federal access restrictions implemented between June 2024 and January 2026.
Key Points
- Primary denial: “No. Flock does not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or any other sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security.”
- Agencies are contractually prohibited from using Flock data for immigration enforcement — confirmed
- “Every piece of data collected by Flock license plate readers is owned and controlled by the customer”
- June 2025: automatic immigration/reproductive-health keyword blocks deployed
- August 2025: federal agencies separated into restricted organization type; removed from statewide/national lookup networks; Flock announced end of all federal pilot programs
- January 2026: new toggle enabling agencies to disable all federal data sharing
- Completed federal pilots included: FBI (2021–2023), National Park Service (2021–2024), ATF Louisville (2022–2025), ATF Nashville (2023–2025), NCIS (2025), HSI (2025), CBP (2025)
Newsletter Angles
- The timeline documents that Flock’s technical restrictions came years after the contractual prohibition existed — confirming the article’s core argument that contractual ≠ technical
- The distinction between “Flock does not work with ICE” and “local agencies ran searches on ICE’s behalf using local credentials” is the gap this blog post is designed to fill with technically accurate language
- The concluded pilot list (FBI, ATF, CBP, HSI) is significant: Flock was actively running federal pilots while publicly denying ICE relationships — two true statements that together obscure the actual picture
Entities Mentioned
- Flock Safety — author/subject; confirms contractual prohibition language
- ICE — primary subject of the denial
Concepts Mentioned
- Vendor-State Governance — contractual prohibition without technical enforcement is the mechanism the article analyzes
- Flock Safety Surveillance Network — surveillance infrastructure context
Quotes
“No. Flock does not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or any other sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Flock does not have a contract with ICE or any sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Every piece of data collected by Flock license plate readers is owned and controlled by the customer.”
“In August of 2025, Flock publicly announced it would no longer conduct pilot projects with federal agencies.”
Notes
Two dates appear in the source: January 6, 2026 and April 8, 2026. The page appears to be a live document updated over time. April 8, 2026 is used as the published date here. The contractual prohibition language is important — it confirms agencies are contractually barred from immigration use, but this was not technically enforced until June 2025 at the earliest.