GULF SHORES — Following the release of Flock Safety's newest privacy and accountability standards in August, three South Baldwin cities have said their agencies will adopt most of the company's …
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GULF SHORES — Following the release of Flock Safety's newest privacy and accountability standards in August, three South Baldwin cities have said their agencies will adopt most of the company's recommendations.
The Gulf Shores Police Department, Foley Police Department and Orange Beach Police Department said they will all be launching an optional public transparency portal, a public-facing webpage to share how each department is using their Flock network, but Gulf Shores and Orange Beach said they will continue to retain collected data for 30 days rather than Flock's current retention standard of seven.
The Foley Police Department said they adhere to internal guidelines and state regulations, but did not provide specifics on their data retention policy. According to Public Information Officer Rhea Thornton-Bottoms, the department is also “currently reviewing our camera deployments and usage policies.”
The Atlanta-based tech company, which offers a variety of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), pan, tilt zoom cameras (PTZs) and other visual and audio detection devices along with access to a vast national network of participating law enforcement agencies' data, announced the changes to its standards earlier this month amid growing public concern around mass surveillance and misuse. The changes also include what the company calls mandatory misuse detection.
Flock and its matte-black cameras, which sit atop polls mounted with solar panels, have the drawn the ire of communities across the country, resulting in protests, vandalized equipment and heated public comment periods during municipal meetings. Some of that pushback is yielding results. In late August, the Florida Department of Transportation ordered the removal of ALPRs from all state highway right-of-ways. In the days following that decision, right next door, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office and the Pensacola Police Department both announced suspensions of their ALPR networks. According to anti-surveillance project DeFlock, more than 150 communities across the country have either cancled, deactivated or rejected the use of the cameras.
At nearly every Gulf Shores City Council meeting and work session since the beginning of July, there has been at least one person using public comment to speak in opposition to Flock, sometimes up to four or five taking the podium.
19-year-old Gulf Shores resident Timothy Pittman, who has been an unofficial leader in the local pushback, said he became aware of investigations by Benn Jordan, a popular investigative YouTuber, in June that exposed data risk issues and vulnerabilities with Flock and that he felt compelled to speak to his local elected officials.
"I don't think safety should come at the price of constant surveillance," he said.
Since speaking at the July 6 meeting, Pittman, who is going to college for cybersecurity, said he has been posting on social media to educate people about the capabilities of the technology. His videos have garnered more than 100,000 views and hundreds of supportive comments, and a Change.org petition that he started to remove the cameras has more than 1,000 verified signatures, but the online support hasn't manifested in large in-person turnout at the public meetings. A protest he organized in early August saw less than 20 people attend.
Gulf Shores Police Chief Dan Netemeyer said he understands apprehensions concerning the cameras but that he believes much of it is the result of a misunderstanding of how his specific department is using the technology. While Gulf Shores has a population of over 17,000, Alabama's beaches attract over 6.5 million visitors a year, according to the most recently available tourism data.
"We are not staffed for a police department the size of the number of people that we have in this town at any given time," he said. "We're staffed more appropriately to deal with the balance of our permanent residents and our balance of guests.”
Netemeyer said the Flock system allows GSPD to "police bigger.”
Currently, Gulf Shores has 87 of Flock's cameras placed in what Netemeyer described as high-density traffic areas along with "special areas" like public beach accesses, parks, schools and prominent government facilities. Of the 87 Flock cameras, 12 are PTZs, four are live fixed video covering intersections, and 71 are ALPRs. The city also has had four additional cameras from Vigilant LPR, a surveillance and data analytics company owned by Motorola, since about 2016.The network in South Baldwin County has grown. Along with Gulf Shores, Orange Beach and Foley have also entered into contracts with Flock in the last year or so.
In Orange Beach, the council approved a purchase order last summer for $81,000 and currently has 16 Flock ALPR cameras online, according to Police Chief Trent Johnson. The Foley Police Department is currently operating 25 ALPRs, though Thornton-Bottoms did not specify how many were Flock. In January, Foley City Council approved a $41,000 purchase of nine additional "surveillance cameras.”
According to Netemeyer, the APLRs in Gulf Shores "read" every vehicle that passes. They capture the license plate number, make, model and color and any other identifying features like bumper stickers, existing damage, etc.
"The ALPR does not record anything other than a picture of a vehicle and license plate," he said.
The first of Flock's cameras went live in Gulf Shores in February after a one-year contract for a little more than $300,000 was approved by city council in September 2025. Since February, the cameras have logged 51,375,457 reads. Of that number, 5,877 of those reads were queried, meaning an officer, detective or dispatcher deliberately looked up a specific plate or set of results in the system, Netemeyer said.
RETENTION PERIOD AND TRANSPARENCY POLICY
Nationally, these queries, how they are accessed and who can access them have been the subject of scrutiny.
According to a story by the Washington Post published in early August, at least 50 law enforcement officers have been charged or accused of misusing Flock and systems like them to track exes and romantic partners.
In Alabama, an officer from Springville resigned after being found to have conducted unauthorized searches on a family member. In Moody, an officer was fired after violating the department's ALPR policy.
For Netemeyer, who formerly worked public corruption and misuse of government computers with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the way these in-state incidents played out mean that safeguards are working. He added he has not seen any misuse in Gulf Shores but that his department would remain vigilant in ensuring that continues.
"I have a zero-tolerance approach to misuse of the system," he said. "Every query into the system requires a specified law enforcement purpose, and we conduct periodic audits into the queries. To date, all queries were as described in the reason for the query.”
In Flock's most recent update to its privacy and accountability standards, the company reduced its 30-day read retention recommendation to seven days, but Netemeyer said after speaking with his command staff that GSPD will continue to retain reads for 30 days.
"We feel that in Gulf Shores, since we are a destination city, that we're going to maintain the 30-day retention period," he said, citing seasonal/absentee residents and long-term airport parking as two examples.
In Orange Beach, Johnson agreed and said he feels the 30 days is more than enough for his department's purposes as well.
"If an investigator needs something more than that, they're gonna have to give us a really, really good reason why we would do anything past that," he said. "I've not ever seen a request to go past it.”
Thornton-Bottoms did not disclose how long Foley retains data but said in an emailed response that the department is reviewing camera deployments and usage policies.
"The Foley Police Department adheres to strict internal guidelines and Alabama state regulations regarding these investigative tools," she said. "Data collected by these devices is securely maintained by approved third-party vendors, such as Flock Safety.”
There are no current state laws governing ALPR readers in Alabama, but if a plate is queried for a law enforcement purpose, existing state administrative code, r.265-X-6, would allow a department to retain the data for no more than five years, with an exception for active investigations.
Netemeyer said he hopes Gulf Shores' new transparency portal will give the public a better understanding of how the Flock system is operating in the city. The portal, which is set to go live "soon," will give the community access to the number of reads, the number of queries that have been made on those reads and the crimes the system has assisted the department in solving.
Though both Foley and Orange Beach were still looking into how to implement the transparency portal when asked in early September, both said they will bring the portal online eventually as well.
For Pittman, the transparency portal feels like more of a way to make up for, what he sees as, how untransparent Flock has been and to help quell the pushback they have recieved.
"The city can try to be 'transparent' all they want," he said. "But how are we supposed to trust what Flock and the city says about Flock if they're actively hiding behind these closed events..."
LOCALIZED SURVEILLANCE METHODS
"Since [we've had them at the dog park], we have not had one dog dumped," Netemeyer noted, saying it was relatively common prior to installing the PTZ.
Dogs abandoned at the park become the responsibility of the police department's community service officers and the city, which does not have an animal shelter.
"That takes resources away from what we do," he said. "Our community service officers, who are also crossing guards, they're also doing work down at the beach, beach parking enforcement and all the other jobs they have to do. And if we can eliminate some of the dogs they have to care for, it makes them more effective in doing their jobs.”
'When asked about facial recognition or other artificial intelligence features, one of the more prominent concerns about the technology, Netemeyer said his department wouldn't rule out adding features but that they are not currently in use with any of their cameras.
"If that's available right now, we are not using it," he said.
Orange Beach and Foley also said they are not using facial recognition technology in their camera networks.
What makes Flock so valuable to law enforcement, and so Orwellian to opponents, is its nationwide network. According to the company, there are currently 100,000 cameras deployed through 6,000 communities across 49 states.
When a law enforcement agency contracts with Flock, it has the option to opt into this nationwide network. According to the company, most do.
To opt in, agencies must share their data with the network as well, but Netemeyer emphasized that data is only shared when other agencies have a law enforcement reason to do so.
"They don't contact us and say, 'Hey, we need the information,' because there would be unnecessary delays in that," he said. "We put our data out there for other law enforcement agencies to be able to query based on the criteria established at their departments.”
Gulf Shores has seen the beneficial power of this network several times since February, according to Netemeyer, but one incident involving a dementia patient crossing state lines sticks out. In May, a man reached out to GSPD saying his 90-year-old mother who has dementia was traveling toward Panama City. The son was tracking his mother via her cellphone, but with service going in and out it was spotty and she was not answering the phone.
"A Flock query was initiated by GSPD, and every camera between Gulf Shores and Panama City showed her route to include cameras she was approaching," he said. "The Florida Highway Patrol was contacted and advised of the situation. A trooper was in the area, and the 90-year-old dementia patient was stopped and determined to be safe by FHP within eight minutes of the complainant contacting GSPD."
STATEHOUSE CATCHING UP?
Alabama ranks ninth nationally for the largest number of ALPRs with just over 2,000 active in the state, according to DeFlock, one of the most well-known crowd-sourced, camera-mapping sites, and while the state currently has no ALPR-specific law, that could change. Sen. Arthur Orr, R-Decatur, plans to file a bill after the Nov. 3 general election setting statewide ALPR rules after a similar 2021 bill passed the Senate but stalled in the House.
Netemeyer said he believes in the efficacy of the Flock system but that he is ready and willing to adjust city practices if rulings or changes in the law come down."Law enforcement is used to making adjustments... it's not an absolute for me," he said. "If they come out and they say the Supreme Court has ruled they are unconstitutional, they come down immediately. No questions asked.”
Foley's Thornton-Bottoms and Orange Beach's Johnson echoed Netemeyer's sentiment about being willing to adjust their practices as situations develop.
Last week, GSPD concluded its department-wide Flock training and allowed city council members to sit in on parts of it. Council will vote on the Flock contract renewal later this year.
Pittman, who recently moved to Tennessee for school, said he will continue to keep an eye on any news about the city and its use of Flock and plans to come back for the contract renewal vote, if there is one. He said he encourages people to speak up at meetings and online forums and to remain hopeful.
"I'm just gonna continue to be optimistic," he said. "I don't think it really necessarily gets you anywhere if you go into something and you're trying to make a positive impact but you yourself aren't positive about it."
