Flock Safety's cameras are getting harder to miss along the Red River, and so are the people who want them gone. Flock makes license plate readers that photograph passing vehicles and store the images in a database. Police can then search that database to map where a car has been and set alerts for flagged vehicles, all without a search warrant.
William McGeveran, dean of the University of Minnesota Law School and a specialist in data privacy and technology law, said the size of the operation is what's new. "Flock says that they get billions of license-plate images a month. Just that scale is unprecedented," he said. He also called the company's growth "a really aggressive marketing push."
The local numbers are fairly small. Fargo and West Fargo started using Flock in 2024, and Moorhead followed in 2025. Fargo runs 21 cameras, West Fargo 48 and Moorhead 8. Fargo and Moorhead keep the data for 30 days and West Fargo keeps it for 7. Then there's Horace, North Dakota, where the city council voted 3-1 to remove its cameras. Council member Chad Chalmers estimated that 80% of residents backed the removal. "The people should always run the government," he said.
Critics say the problem is tracking ordinary people who aren't suspected of anything. "You should be able to move about freely within the city without being surveilled, and the government should not be able to access information without a warrant," said Cody Schuler, advocacy manager for the ACLU of North Dakota. Barry Nelson of the Faith and Conviction Coalition said the cameras run "counter to what people's sense of what living in a free society means." Residents have raised specific worries too: that the cameras could track who visits gun shops, or watch the religious practices of minority communities.
Police say they use the cameras to find missing people, stolen cars and suspects who flee. Moorhead Police Chief Chris Helmick called license plate reader technology "a valuable law enforcement tool" that can help the community "if used judiciously." Fargo Police Capt. Matt Christensen said Fargo decides which agencies can see its data and requires "a legitimate investigative purpose." West Fargo police said a supervisor reviews a monthly audit of how the system is used.
McGeveran pushed back on the panic a bit. "I wouldn't call the Flock cameras the most serious privacy issue when it comes to law enforcement," he said. He also acknowledged that the law tends to trail new technology: "It's frustrating sometimes when there's that lag, but it also is the way law works."
Minnesota agencies like Moorhead's already have a state law to follow. Under Minnesota Statute 13.824, plate-reader data that isn't tied to an active criminal investigation has to be destroyed within 60 days. The law limits collection to plate numbers, date, time and location, plus pictures of plates, vehicles and the area around them. Agencies must keep a public log, including where stationary readers are, and get an independent audit every 2 years. The full text is on the Revisor's site, so you can check the rules before your next drive through Moorhead.
The University flagged the coverage as an example of UMN expertise in the news.
