The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department quietly entered an agreement in 2023 with Flock Security, an automated license plate reader company that uses cameras to collect vehicle information and…
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) quietly entered an agreement in 2023 with Flock Security, an automated license plate reader company that uses cameras to collect vehicle information and cross-reference it with police databases.
But unlike many of the other police departments around the country that use the cameras in their police work, Metro funds the project with donor money funneled into a private foundation. It’s an arrangement that allows Metro to avoid soliciting public comment on the surveillance technology, which critics worry could be co-opted to track undocumented immigrants, political dissidents and abortion seekers, among others.
“It’s a short circuit of the democratic process,” Jay Stanley, a Washington D.C.-based lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who works on how technology can infringe on individual privacy and civil liberties, said in an interview with The Nevada Independent.
The cameras scan license plates as well as vehicles’ identifying details — such as make, model and color — plugging that information into a national database that police can use to search the location of specific vehicles beyond their own jurisdictions. Flock operates more than 80,000 of these AI-powered cameras nationwide, and the company’s popularity has exploded in recent years, with police touting it as a tool to solve crime faster and boost public safety.
Although taxpayer dollars fund Flock cameras in other jurisdictions, most of the cameras in the Las Vegas area have been bought with money from the Horowitz Family Foundation, a philanthropy group connected to the Las Vegas-based venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, co-founder of the firm Andreessen Horowitz.
The Horowitz Family Foundation did not respond to a request for comment at the time of publication.
Metro told The Nevada Independent that it operates approximately 200 Flock license plate reader cameras on city or county infrastructure and it shares its Flock data with hundreds of state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the country.
Since late 2023, Las Vegas police have made more than 23,000 searches of vehicles, according to the website Have I Been Flocked, which compiles public audit logs of Flock data.
As the cameras were not bought with public funds, Metro does not have to hold meetings with the public to comment on the technology, something experts say leaves citizens without any input on the policing method.
In other cities, Stanley said Flock is often brought up and discussed during city council meetings or other public forums. It’s not required to be on public meeting agendas in the Las Vegas area.
“Police departments serve the community and are supposed to make life in the community better. Does the community want this technology imposed on it?” Stanley said.
Though Horowitz’s foundation donated additional funds for Flock cameras in October, it was not brought up at the Clark County Commission meeting that month, nor was their use discussed anytime in 2025, according to commission meeting minutes.
“Where’s the oversight?”
Some municipalities in Clark County, such as the City of Las Vegas, have license plate reader policies that includes a public Flock policy with a dashboard on how many license plates Flock picked up (about 185,000 in the past month in the city), how many cameras were in use (22 in Las Vegas), and how many searches had been done on a monthly basis (five in the past 30 days). In comparison, Metro’s policy is not publicly available online, though The Indy obtained a copy through a public records request.
Flock’s most recent contract with Metro, signed in 2023, stipulates that the company retains all rights in any recordings or data provided by the service and that Flock can use any of the data for “any purpose” at the company’s discretion. The agreement also says that Flock recordings are not stored for longer than 30 days.
Meanwhile, Metro policy says that department members will not seek or retain license plate reader information about individuals or an organization based solely on their citizenship, social views, race or other classifications protected by law. The policy states that retained license plate reader data does not include specific identification of individuals. Misuse of the data will result in disciplinary action up to termination, according to the policy.
But for many, including a former officer who spoke to The Indy on the condition of anonymity for fear of professional repercussions, such policies are not enough.
“It’s ripe for misuse,” the officer said, pointing to examples around the country of people using Flock to look for current and former romantic partners and track their movements. A police chief in Kansas used Flock to track his ex-girlfriend 228 times in four months. An officer in South Carolina used public cameras to monitor his wife, who he suspected was having an affair.
The former Metro officer said his major concern was not the technology itself, but the fact that there was little transparency on how the technology was being used or what the department’s policy was on Flock usage.
“If you look around the country where license plate readers are being used, there’s some kind of public meeting, there’s some kind of public process,” the officer said. “What’s happening here is on a very large scale — they’re putting out surveillance technology — and there’s no public disclosure.”
Privacy concerns
The Horowitz Foundation donation in October included a software subscription to Flock’s Nova feature, which allows officers to easily access private license plate information alongside other personal data, such as Social Security numbers, credit scores, property and occupancy information, as well as emails or social media handles.
Experts say this data could be used to identify undocumented immigrants, political protesters and people traveling across state lines to obtain abortions.
Athar Haseebullah, the executive director of the ACLU of Nevada, said that Flock not only poses a heightened risk for immigrants, but anyone engaged in actions that are found to be politically defiant. He pointed to a case in Texas where police conducted a nationwide search using Flock technology for a woman who self-induced an abortion.
“This could be ripe for abuse by ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement), but it could also be ripe for abuse by other government entities,” Haseebullah said. In 2025, the ACLU pushed back against a measure that would allow local jurisdictions to use automated traffic cameras to crack down on speeding and red-light crossings, although the bill was never voted on.
Flock has received backlash nationwide for allowing federal agencies such as Customs and Border Patrol to tap into their data. The company has said it does not work with ICE after evidence was found that the agency used Flock data for immigration investigations. Several cities have terminated or modified their Flock agreements after realizing they were inadvertently sharing their data with other agencies.
However, though Flock might not want to partner with ICE, it has little choice — Flock is obligated to fulfill subpoenas from ICE and can’t refuse a legal warrant, Andrew Ferguson, an attorney and a professor researching tech and police surveillance at George Washington University, said.
Flock’s surveillance cameras are meant to catch crime, though experts say it could deter certain behaviors if citizens are aware they are being watched.
“There’s a chilling effect knowing that your government is essentially tracking you wherever you go,” Ferguson said. “It might be even more chilling if you put cameras in sensitive places, like a medical clinic, or a Gambler’s Anonymous meeting, or a church.”
In a city such as Las Vegas, known for drinking, gambling and a hearty party culture, surveillance is the last thing people are interested in, according to Ferguson.
“Things are happening in Vegas that are not going to stay in Vegas,” Ferguson said. “They’re going to be broadcast through Flock.”
Public private partnerships
As recently as October of last year, the Horowitz Family Foundation donated almost $1.9 million for Flock license plate readers and another $2.47 million for supporting software for Flock machines, according to the minutes of an LVMPD fiscal affairs committee meeting.
Because the donations aren’t coming directly to Metro, but to the nonprofit LVMPD foundation, also known as “Friends of Metro,” any discussions on the cameras’ use aren’t subject to Nevada's open meeting laws.
The license plate readers and their supporting software are not the only gift that the Horowitz Family Foundation, led by Ben Horowitz’s wife, Felicia Horowitz, has donated to Las Vegas police. The foundation has also gifted drones, as well as Tesla Cybertrucks, to the agency.
Proponents have billed the gifts as morale boosters for police that help the agency stay on the cutting edge without tapping into limited taxpayer dollars. Critics, such as the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Southern Nevada, have suggested that the Cybertrucks show that Metro is “prioritizing corporate giveaways.”
Felicia Horowitz said she is focused on “creating the best community in America” in Las Vegas, according to her bio from a local nonprofit organization that she sits on the board of. Part of that is combating crime and keeping citizens safe. In a Wall Street Journal article, Felicia Horowitz emphasized how crime and weak policing had hurt Black communities across the country.
“The new policies — defund the police, don’t prosecute crime — are destroying the communities where I grew up,” Felicia Horowitz, who is Black, told the WSJ in 2024. Felicia Horowitz was raised in Los Angeles and the Horowitzes relocated to Las Vegas around 2021 and 2022 after decades in California.
So far, the foundation has not publicly commented on whether it will continue donating money for Flock services. Some experts think the donations might be a strategy called “penetration pricing,” where a company gives free or reduced products or services in order to hook consumers before charging them.
“There’s no question that there’s a financial interest in them proving that the Flock technology works in Las Vegas so that they can sell it to other places,” said Ferguson.
The former police officer said he was concerned about taxpayers having to cough up funds to continue Flock services if the Horowitz money ran dry.
“Once you start relying on a certain type of policing, it’s going to be hard to switch over, and then who will foot the bill?” the officer said.
Read the original article
Comments
I think the money is a red herring here.
In Oak Park, Illinois, we ran into a rhyming version of this problem: the only control we had about what technology OPPD deployed was a spending limit ($15K, if I'm remembering right), above which they had to ask the board for an appropriation. Our pilot deployment of Flock cameras easily went underneath that limit.
I'm not reflexively anti-ALPR camera. I don't like them, but I do local politics and know what my neighbors think, and a pretty significant chunk of my neighbors --- in what is likely one of the top 10 bluest municipalities in the United States (we're the most progressive in Chicagoland, which is saying something) --- want these cameras as a response to violent crime.
But I do believe you have to run a legit process to get them deployed.
OPPD was surprised when, after attempting to graduate their pilot to a broader deployment, a minor fracas erupted at the board. I'm on Oak Park's information systems commission and, with the help of a trustee and after talking to the Board president, got "what the hell do we do about the cameras" assigned to my commission. In conjunction with our police oversight commission (but, really, just us on the nerd commission), we:
* Got General Orders put in place for Flock usage that limited it exclusively to violent crime.
* Set up a monthly usage report regime that allowed the Village to get effectiveness metrics that prevented further rollout and ultimately got the cameras shut down.
* Presented to the board and got enacted an ACLU CCOPS ordinance, which requires board approval for anything broadly construed as "surveillance technology" for policing, whether you spend $1, $100,000, or $0 on it.
Especially if you're in a suburb, where the most important units of governance are responsive to like 15,000-50,000 people, this stuff is all pretty doable if you engage in local politics. It's much trickier if you're within the city limits of a major metro (we're adjacent to Chicago, and by rights should be a part of it), but still.
I cannot imagine a scenario where I'd want those in my neighborhood. Glad you like them, but I hope they don't make it to the west suburbs where I live.
Who are you talking about who likes the cameras? It isn't me. But if you're in a suburb of Chicagoland, my guess is your neighbors like them a bunch. They won't like Flock, because of the Trump administration and ICE press around Flock, but ALPRs are commodity technology now and you'll likely roll out some other vendor, like the munis surrounding Oak Park did.
By halfmatthalfcat 2026-02-241:431 reply Hi, Evanstonian here, we got rid of them.
By tptacek 2026-02-241:49 Right, you're the 2nd most liberal muni in Illinois after us. But Wilmette still has theirs, just like River Forest still has their ALPRs. I think a lot of munis will drop Flock, because of the bad PR, but they're just going to stand up no-name ALPRs.
(For people unfamiliar with Chicagoland, Oak Park borders Chicago to its west and is like our version of Park Slope, and Evanston, which houses Northwestern University, borders Chicago to the North and is like our Westchester County.)
I was pretty irritable about us cancelling our Flock contract. We did a metric fuckton of regulation on our cameras; I think we may have had the most sophisticated ALPR regulation of any ALPR in the country (granted, that's a statement about how little regulation there is of them, but still). We could have disabled our cameras but kept the contract, kept our standing as a municipality that uses Flock, and then shopped our ordinances and police general orders to the neighboring municipalities.
Instead, we performatively cancelled our contract, while remaining 4.5 square miles surrounded on all sides by totally unregulated ALPRs.
By tokyobreakfast 2026-02-2322:412 reply [flagged]
This would be a more compelling rebuttal if I hadn't just told you a story about how we obtained exactly the outcome you claim to want in our own municipality.
Almost nobody on either side of the aisle likes the government putting up cameras in their neighborhood.
It's a reflexive reaction that Americans have to the government stepping on them. They get away with digital surveillance because it's generally well-hidden, but Trump is even changing that.
By tptacek 2026-02-241:40 I really don't think this is true. I just watched lots and lots of people in an extraordinarily liberal suburb make impassioned cases for why they wanted these things up.
By rurp 2026-02-2322:03 This is very helpful information, thanks for sharing. Vegas is unlikely to be an outlier here, especially given the involvement of Horowitz. I expect that many cities and towns will face similar moves to do an end run around citizen's rights and knowledge.
This is all well and good, but the problem is that those systems leak left and right. No amount of politics can stop that.
Back in the day when first ALPRs went into operation (I don't remember, was it 10 or 15 years ago) it took about two weeks for the data to appear on darkweb.
Then the same happened to citywide face recognition.
The only way to stop abuse is to not collect the data : ban the systems entirely.
The money being a red herring is a convenient excuse to say “surveillance capitalism is fine because there’s already a legal path to this dystopia and this idea fits right in”. These capital interests have shown even if there is a legal path to stop they will ignore it and try to circumvent it. So the money isn’t a red herring because the money is being used to bypass the legal pathway to stop the deployments.
This comment is one very long sentence and because it replies to me I'm sorry to have to say I'm not smart enough to understand what it's saying. Did you try to get an ordinance enacted in your municipality and fail? I'd love to hear how that went, and maybe offer advice.
By throwway120385 2026-02-2322:50 FWIW this is probably the most matter-of-fact series of statements from a commenter about Flock or about the democratic process that I've seen in years on this site.
You’re very clearly defensive about defending flock installs, but yeah I will go back and edit my comment to clarify. Apologies your majesty for forgetting some punctuation while I was sick.
By seangrogg 2026-02-241:06 The text "prevented further rollout and ultimately got the cameras shut down" is verbatim in their post maybe a few sentences after talking about how the muni piloted them.
I'm defensive about defending Flock installs? I'm one of a small minority of HN commenters that has actually gotten Flock cameras disabled across a municipality.
For what it's worth, your original comment is a little hard to parse, particularly because you say "our pilot deployment" which makes it sound like you were involved in deploying the cameras. Combined with your realpolitik comment about knowing your neighbors want them, I think several people are confused about your opinions and what you ended up doing to fight the cameras.
By tempest_ 2026-02-2323:48 It isnt that hard to parse and it is very clear what position the commenter holds they state it
> I'm not reflexively anti-ALPR camera. I don't like them
Even LLMs can correctly parse this commenters intention.
I'm very disappointed reading the replies to your comment. It's pretty clear that most people just saw a long set of words that wasn't full-tilt negative and assumed you are pro-camera.
I read it and I admire what you accomplished!
By tptacek 2026-02-240:50 Thanks! But I'm much more interested in just getting people to do local politics. It is nothing at all like national politics. The people you need to persuade aren't faceless, they're not a mass of people swayed by the media, the electeds will take your phone calls directly, you can go door-to-door to make things happen. I see so much nihilistic fatalism in these threads and I think most of it is based off a conception of politics rooted in, like, the shit Politico reports about.
Most of the stuff that really impacts your community, like Flock, is governed locally, by very small numbers of people.
Oh sorry I can’t read more than 1 sentence so I don’t know what I’m replying to, you’ll have to reword yours.
I love that you had to edit this from your original comment, which said "I can't read more than 2 sentences" (in response to my 2-sentence comment). Well played!
By righthand 2026-02-2419:34 I love that I can keep you busy with nonsense commentary. You’re sweating trying to make sense of it all. Poorly played!
By patmorgan23 2026-02-2322:411 reply Reading comprehension my dude.
The money isn't the problem, deploying surveillance measures without Democratic involvement is.
Idk how you come out of the top comment thinking they were or flock.
By righthand 2026-02-2419:37 Reading comprehension my dude. The money enables the “without Democratic involvement” part.
Idk how you come out of my comment thinking I missed the whole plea to “please stay inside democracy lines while your opponent runs laps around you with money”.
Why is the money a red herring? Just like in Oak Park, the police in Vegas are required to follow a democratic process for large purchases, and they were only able to avoid that with the money.
> Metro funds the project with donor money funneled into a private foundation. It’s an arrangement that allows Metro to avoid soliciting public comment on the surveillance technology
It doesn't matter whether the cameras are a good idea or not, the police should not be able to use a "donation" (from a guy who's going to profit from the donated equipment) to pretend they haven't done anything the public needs to know about.
The money is the main issue here, without it the public would have had a chance to discuss all the things you're talking about, and maybe reject them or put in some limitations. I would object to any secret arrangement like this, even if it was something completely innocuous like pencils for schools. There's no reason for significant acquisitions to be secret, and even if the government is acquiring something good and necessary, I don't want public services to be dependent on the generosity of some random dude without public discussion.
The large purchase has nothing to do with the actual problem! In Oak Park, OPPD rolled ALPR cameras out without bending a single rule because Flock structured a pilot deployment for them that came in under the purchase threshold. You aren't OK with that (and I'm not either) and it has nothing to do with the money.
Ok maybe this is just a semantic issue, but I'm still not understanding your argument that money has nothing to do with it. In your case, instead of having the founder donate the cameras, the company itself essentially donated them, I assume for a limited time. How is that not a money issue? When you said "a minor fracas erupted at the board", why did the board have a say at that point? Was it because the police now had to spend money, triggering public oversight?
It seems like the main problem you identified in your original comment is "I do believe you have to run a legit process to get them deployed." What is currently preventing this from happening? The only barrier I'm seeing is Ben Horowitz and Flock finding creative ways to temporarily let their customers not pay for their services.
I don't know how to more clearly say that the purchasing thresholds for police departments are not the actual issue with ALPR deployment. What you need is affirmative consent from the board/council before they're deployed, regardless of cost. If you rely on cost thresholds, ALPR vendors will make arrangements to get deployed in ways that fit under those thresholds. That's exactly what happened to us.
I think maybe one thing that's happening here is that people thing literally the only possible control against unwanted ALPR deployment is expenditure rules. But this is a story about one way a large metro got around expenditure rules. Meanwhile: there are model ordinances you can adopt that completely moot the price/gift issue. Pass them!
The point of my comment is "here is something you can do besides yelling on message boards about how much you don't like surveillance".
I think proactively passing a model ordinance is a good idea, but installing cameras is obviously not the only objectionable thing a police department can do. It isn't practical to make them get public approval for every acquisition regardless of cost, and it also isn't practical to brainstorm every possible bad thing they might ever try in the future and pass ordinances covering all of them.
I agree that the concrete bad thing that happened here is that cameras were installed without public consent. You are responding by saying "well the public should have predicted that and passed an ordinance before the police had a chance to try it". I am saying the police should be forced to consult the public when they make any significant acquisition, in any area, not just surveillance.
Perhaps the cost threshold could be amended to apply to the value of the good or services received, not the amount paid for them.
You also are not addressing the issue of government dependency on a private individual. Let's say Vegas has a public debate and decides they are in favor of cameras with no restrictions. Great, so is it now ok that Horowitz is donating them? No, it's still bad, because he might decide to stop being generous at any time, and then what happens? Vegas either suddenly loses an important service they depend on, or is forced to immediately pay whatever exorbitant price Flock/Horowitz comes up with.
ACLU CCOPS covers all surveillance technology, broadly construed; it is not simply an anti-camera ordinance. The whole point of it is to codify what things require consent.
Does it cover AI tools or things like predictive policing? What about heavy weapons and equipment? What if some guy decides to donate a bunch of tanks and rocket launchers? Drones? Personnel? Maybe a billionaire feels unsafe and donates $100 million for the police to hire hundreds of new cops to patrol the streets. Chemical weapons? "Education" from an extremist organization? Buildings? Maybe a "donor" could manipulate police presence by giving them land for police stations in specific areas. How about those high-pitched alarms that most adults can't hear, so that kids stay out of our donor's favorite part of town? Free high-powered legal defense for cops accused of crimes?
Do you understand what I'm saying? How is any community supposed to prevent every possible violation before it happens? Read through the history of police misconduct in this country and I'm sure you'll find some creative things you never would have thought of.
Yes and yes. Donation doesn't change anything; it's deployment that trips the threshold. If you care about heavy weaponry, add that to your ordinance (it's not hard) but the concern on this thread is surveillance.
I do not agree with the philosophy that the police should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as it wasn't explicitly prohibited in advance. That is the result of relying on ordinances that enumerate "what things require consent". A blanket expenditure limit is a better system in theory, but the article posted here demonstrates that it should actually be something like a "value added" limit. I am disagreeing with you that surveillance is the only concern in this thread. Private donations to the police of any kind are concerning when they bypass what is supposed to be a blanket limit on police power.
By fc417fc802 2026-02-240:301 reply I honestly don't see the issue with private donations. Either it's something you want the police to have or it isn't. So the system needs to be structured to prevent them unilaterally deploying things that the bulk of the populace might not approve of.
I agree that a blacklist approach doesn't work. But neither does an expenditure limit. A value added limit is I think just a roundabout way of expressing a whitelist approach? Which seems like the only sensible solution to me. Ideally all deployments should require case-by-case approval unless an ordinance is passed to blanket approve an entire technology class for a specific type of usage.
By burkaman 2026-02-241:31 Yes a whitelist makes a lot of sense, I don't know why I didn't think of that. Seems like it would be doable to blanket allow office supplies, gas, uniforms, etc. and then declare that anything else, even if it's free, must be approved by the public. If it's something uncontroversial then you can just update the ordinance.
Donations would be less of a problem with this system in place, but I still think it would be irresponsible to accept a donation without a plan to pay for it in the future if donations stop, and I also wouldn't want officers to feel indebted to some rich guy.
By strangattractor 2026-02-2322:43 Getting your foot in the door: I think that having a supposed non-profit foundation make a contribution to a local government that then purchases a product that directly benefits an investor in that company which also happens to run that same foundation seems if not illegal ethically challenged.
By warkdarrior 2026-02-2322:37 > Why is the money a red herring?
Because even $1 for surveillance is too much.
This is why gifts to government are problematic. They are never gifts, they are end-runs around accountability and should have exceptionally high scrutiny. It is hard to say they should be outright illegal since participating in government often blurs the line between gifting government and just normal participation. This though is clearly just an end-run around democracy.
By FreakLegion 2026-02-2323:49 This particular gift is also problematic because Horowitz is an investor in Flock, and Horowitz's family foundation is spending money on Flock that will in turn increase its value, which benefits him as an investor. Of course lawyers will have looked at all this to make sure it doesn't run afoul of self-dealing rules, but that just means the rules verge on uselessly weak.
So if I understand the totality of the situation here: mans donates cameras from company he invested in, gets tax break for doing so, helps portfolio co, furthers own self-interest and propels us towards surveillance state?
Did I miss anything?
The only thing you may have missed is that YCombinator is also an investor in Flock.
By reactordev 2026-02-2322:021 reply You're saying the quiet part out loud sir...
By roysting 2026-02-2322:32 That’s my curse
By tptacek 2026-02-2321:58 I think the money is a red herring here. ALPR firms can come up with any number of different pilot/licensing/financing programs to keep deployments under purchasing thresholds for police departments.
The issue is that Las Vegas, like most major metros, doesn't appear to have ordinances preventing their police department from deploying cameras without the consent of the city council. That's fixable! There's model ordinances for this.
