Akron’s widespread use of Flock surveillance cameras and the city’s participation in the company’s vast vehicle-tracking network was defended Monday by Mayor Shammas Malik’s chief of public safety.
“We want to operate from a place of facts, not fear,” Craig Morgan told Akron City Council’s Public Safety Committee on Monday. Akron’s network of nearly 150 Flock Safety surveillance cameras logs every car that drives by into a database instantly accessible to thousands of law enforcement agencies.
Morgan’s pre-scheduled appearance in City Council chambers came the same day Signal Akron documented thousands of instances where outside law enforcement agencies made immigration-specific searches in Akron’s Flock records.
The agencies are mostly located in Southern states with laws that mandate local cooperation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The 8,829 immigration searches discovered by Signal Akron were among 33.4 million total external searches of Akron’s network between December 2024 and June 2026. Signal Akron also discovered Flock cameras were used as part of a Texas sheriff’s investigation of a woman for having an abortion.
The city blocked searches for immigration and abortion in May, but millions of searches during and after that period contain little information about their purpose, making it impossible to determine their intent.
Opposing views on the use of Flock cameras
Criticisms of Flock cameras are misguided, Morgan said, because:
- Flock cameras represent “a drop in the bucket” of the widespread surveillance people are under every day.
- In Akron, the cameras recently helped solve a shooting, located a car involved in a fatal hit-and-run and found an elderly person with dementia.
- The cameras are not unconstitutional, since drivers can’t expect to have privacy on public roadways.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can’t directly access the records.
- The city added filters in May to block external searches that are labeled as immigration- or abortion-related.
- The records disappear after a set time — previously 30 days, until a recent change to a week — unless they are part of a criminal investigation.
- While it’s possible for law enforcement to abuse Flock, it’s also possible that terrorist attacks were stopped by it.
Morgan’s defense of Flock cameras is nearly identical to the format of the company’s own materials. They include that:
- ICE doesn’t have direct access to Flock via an account.
- Agency-specific filters block searches related to immigration and reproductive health care and help prevent abuses.
- Flock success stories show the networks work as intended.
These are strategies and talking points encouraged by Flock executives in a recent public relations push.
Council Member Eric Garrett, a vocal ICE critic, chastised Morgan during the committee meeting for claiming Akron’s network is no longer being used for immigration enforcement just because the city blocked explicit searches while continuing to give access to agencies cooperating with ICE.
“We cannot say definitively that they’re not sharing our information with ICE, with other law enforcement,“ Garrett said. “Now there’s other people in other agencies [that are] tracking our information, correct?”
Morgan replied, “It’s a very good point and the vice versa, or the other side of that coin, is absolutely true: Nobody can tell me definitely that they are” still being used for immigration enforcement.
But during the full council meeting Monday night, Malik said, “There are also serious questions asked about the internal use of the system and the external use of the system by external agencies, including the points raised today by Signal Akron about access on immigration prior to and subsequent to us turning on filters to prevent that.
“We are going to continue to engage in dialogue with every member of council, members of the public, the media as we have done over the last several months.”
Akron’s contract lets Flock keep and share data forever
Council Member Fran Wilson, one of Flock’s biggest critics on council along with Garrett, asked Morgan about the city’s contract with Flock. They said Flock can store Akron’s data forever, including the data gathered prior to blocking immigration searches, and give it to any law enforcement agency
“The data could still currently, even though the toggle is off, be used for immigration purposes,” Wilson said.
“The key, I think, word you used throughout was the word could,” Morgan responded. You may have used it a half a dozen times and I agree with you. ‘Could’ is the operative phrase.”
Someone “could” get behind the wheel and kill somebody, but other people don’t stop driving, Morgan argued. He said it would be “impossible” to prevent Akron’s network from being used for immigration enforcement, but getting rid of the system would hinder investigations.
“I think we all agree we can’t anticipate some forms of misuse until they happen. Nobody anticipated anybody would use a plane as a missile until it happened, and now we’re all prepared for it, right?” Morgan said.
The Monday afternoon presentation was soon cut off to make way for other committee meetings, but Wilson made one more comment.
“My translation of what he said to me and us,” Wilson said of Morgan’s presentation, “is we cannot guarantee whether the millions of searches that happen on Akron’s Flock network, if those are immigration-related or not. Period.”
