By Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project Subscribe to the Free Future Newsletter Free Future home The license plate reading company Flock has made several significant changes to its contractual terms & conditions that appear to diminish cities and towns’ control over data and otherwise shift power from customers to the company. Current Flock customers, as well as those who are considering using Flock, should be aware of these contractual changes, look closely at them, and seek the advice of counsel before they enter into or renew a contract with the company. Flock’s changes, covered by the security research service IPVM and the web site HaveIBeenFlocked.com, which are both dogged investigators and critics of the company, are already having an impact on local debates. Flock made at least four changes to its standard terms & conditions (T&C) in the 7 months leading up to its current (as of this writing) contract, dated Feb. 16, 2026. The changes include: - Sale of data. Flock’s previous T&C stated flatly, “Flock does not own and shall not sell Customer Data.” That language is now absent from their T&C. - Control over data. The new license, while granting formal legal “ownership” of data to the customer, grants the company “the exclusive right to determine and control the method, timing, format, and medium” of access to the data that supposedly belongs to the customer. HaveIBeenFlocked reports that Flock appears to be giving customers access not to raw footage but to altered, degraded, low-resolution copies of that data (which also lack metadata such as time stamps, which can be important). That would be a funny form of ownership. - A perpetual license. The T&C now add a “perpetual” right for Flock to use customer data to “support and improve” its services