Redmond City Council Cleared to End Contract With Flock Safety

The decision comes after a vote last year to deactivate the city’s automatic license plate readers.

Public Safety Building in Redmond, Washington. Image Credit: Jason Miller/Redmond Moments

By Madeline Virginia
Published on July 6, 2026 (Originally published in the Summer 2026 edition of the Redmond Moments Newspaper)

After months of research and deliberation, the City of Redmond is now cleared to end their contract with Flock Safety and will remove all 24 automatic license plate readers in the city. 

This reversal of city policy on ALPRs is considered a huge win for community members concerned with surveillance and privacy rights. 

The motion voted on by Redmond City Council on May 26 was preceded by a presentation by City Attorney Rebecca Mueller, who was charged with finding out if and how the city could end their contract since the cameras were purchased largely with grant funding. 

The ALPRs were part of a police technology package passed by City Council but were deactivated months after installation when Flock Safety came under national scrutiny for sharing citizen data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ALPR technology used by Flock utilizes 24-hour surveillance, capturing images of every license plate that crosses a camera’s path and storing that data in a national database. 

Redmond Police Chief Darrell Lowe and Mayor Angela Birney have noted publicly on multiple occasions that Redmond was not part of any data sharing with the federal government agency, and information was never shared without the police department’s knowledge.

Unringing the bell

The law enforcement cameras were funded largely by two grants, and city staff have been figuring out the logistics of undoing it all since November. In the May 26 council meeting, City Attorney Rebecca Mueller presented her findings: The vendors confirmed that funds were used for their intended purpose, and stopping the program would not mean the city has to pay the funds back.

Grant information screenshot from Redmond City Council supplementary material. Source: Redmond.gov

“That’s very good news for the city,” she explained, confirming that the council was clear to cancel the Flock contract, should they vote to do so. 

Members of the city council engaged in a discussion after Mueller’s findings. 

Councilmember Vivek Prakriya suggested a possible option to cancel the Flock contract and pursue a new contract with another vendor. 

He added, “I would also be interested in exploring some sort of addition to our contract … by adding some sort of ‘poison pill’ in regards to data sharing … where any instance of data sharing would result in a financial bonus for us.”

Councilmember Forsythe responded straightforwardly:
“I am interested in moving forward with the cancellation of the contract with Flock. I am not interested in moving forward with a conversation considering a different vendor. I’m not interested in putting the majority of our citizens at risk for those sorts of data breaches … Even if there were something like a poison pill and the City were to get money, that money should go back into our community who has been harmed. And that would just be a logistical and legal nightmare.”

Other members of the council cited the overwhelming community feedback voicing deep concerns about data security, the right to privacy and opposition to ALPR technology. 

The council then made an official vote on the motion to cancel the Flock contract. All were in unanimous agreement. 

The next steps will be for the city to prepare a final close-out package to present to city council, after which the contract with Flock will be officially cancelled and the deactivated ALPR cameras removed.

Further Reading:

Redmond Moments previous reporting:
“The Rise and Fall of Flock Cameras in Redmond”
www.RedmondMoments.com, December 2025

“Leaving the Door Wide Open: Flock Surveillance Systems Expose Washington Data to Immigration Enforcement”
University of Washington Center for Human Rights, October 2025

Watch Redmond City Council Meetings:
www.redmond.gov/1165/OnDemand-Meetings
www.youtube.com/cityofredmond