Florida Orders Removal of Flock Cameras from All State Highways
The Florida Department of Transportation has revoked permission for automated license-plate readers on state highway right-of-ways.
Chief Operating Officer Will Watts signed the memo giving local agencies 30 days to take them down, Florida’s Voice reported.
Existing approvals “are hereby revoked,” the department said.
FDOT will also stop issuing new permits for license-plate recognition systems on roads it controls.
If a camera is still up after 30 days, the state will remove it. Units that create a safety hazard can come down immediately.
The order covers devices local police installed on the state highway system. It does not automatically pull cameras off city streets, county roads, or private property.
Florida Highway Patrol mobile readers used in ordinary policing are outside the memo as well.
Flock Safety is the brand most people mean when they talk about these poles. The cameras photograph passing cars, grab plate numbers, vehicle descriptions and time stamps, and dump the information into databases agencies can search and share.
Watts wrote that an “exponential increase” in deployments, plus reports of misuse, privacy problems, and “surveillance schemes,” required action “to preserve Floridians’ sovereignty and quality of life,” ABC News reported.
Gov. Ron DeSantis drew the same line last week. “Go after criminals — great, let’s all do that,” he said at Florida International University. “But surveilling just regular Floridians’ movements, and how that data’s used, that’s a bird of a different feather.”
Flock Safety did not comment to ABC News.
Local pushback was already underway. Pasco County Sheriff Chris Nocco said he would end a contract covering about 60 cameras on county right-of-way by Sept. 30 after commissioners pulled their support.
On Tuesday, Lake County Commissioner Anthony Sabatini posted that the board had voted to remove all Flock cameras and license-plate readers from county right-of-way and public areas.
BREAKING—We just voted to REMOVE all Flock Cameras & license plate readers from Lake County right-of-ways & public areas. Thank you to my colleagues for their support on this motion. pic.twitter.com/zAL8xD7bAL
— Anthony Sabatini (@AnthonySabatini) September 1, 2026
At least 100 Florida agencies have signed Flock contracts in recent years, according to reporting that cited Electronic Frontier Foundation records.
Police departments say the systems help find stolen cars and suspects.
Critics say a permanent log of where every driver goes is not the same thing as a patrol car running a plate.
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