Flock Cameras in Bend, Oregon

The short version

Bend, Oregon turned off its Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras at a January 7, 2026 City Council business meeting and planned to let the contract expire on May 1, according to reporting from OPB and The Source Weekly.

The city did not frame the decision as a rejection of ALPR technology forever. Bend Police said the department would look for a different vendor that could provide similar technology. But the Flock program had become a trust problem, especially around privacy, data sharing, and immigration enforcement.

That concern got sharper in May 2026, when The Source Weekly reported that federal immigration officials and related agencies made 279 queries into Bend's Flock Safety data during the first three weeks of the city's program in June 2025.

What Bend had installed

The Source Weekly reported that Bend Police used four Flock Safety cameras between June 4, 2025 and January 7, 2026. These were automated license plate readers, the road cameras that scan plates and vehicle details so police can search for vehicles connected to investigations.

OPB reported that Bend turned the cameras off after community outcry over the automatic license plate reader technology. Its January 2026 story also said Bend Police would look for a new vendor that could provide similar technology.

That combination matters. Bend did not simply buy cameras and move on. The city became part of a broader Oregon fight over whether local ALPR data could be protected from federal immigration use and national search features.

The National Lookup problem

The Source Weekly reported that Bend Police initially left Flock's Lookup function on the factory-default National setting. According to Bend Police Capt. Brian Beekman, the department believed that setting allowed Bend to query at a broader level than Oregon, but later learned it also made Bend data queryable by other agencies around the country.

Beekman told The Source Weekly that he noticed the issue on June 25, 2025 and shut National Lookup off. By then, the program had been live for three weeks.

This is the core lesson for other cities. A sharing setting can sound like a search tool for local police, but in practice it can also become an access path for outside agencies. A council cannot evaluate a Flock program unless it understands that distinction before approval.

The 279-query finding

The Source Weekly reported that the Oregon Law Center found federal immigration officials accessed Bend Police Department's Flock camera database 279 times in June 2025. The article identified agencies and references tied to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, and Homeland Security Investigations.

The same report said Bend Police did not authorize those federal immigration queries and that it was unclear what, if any, data may have been retrieved. Bend officials told The Source Weekly that a query does not necessarily mean a hit occurred or that data was extracted.

That distinction is fair, but it does not make the issue small. Residents were asking whether the city's ALPR data could be reached through outside pathways. The audit trail showed that outside searches reached the system.

Why the public meeting mattered

The January 7 council meeting came after residents and advocacy groups raised concerns about privacy, racial profiling, sanctuary-law compliance, and federal immigration enforcement. The Source Weekly reported that Mayor Melanie Kebler reiterated the city's commitment to Oregon sanctuary laws before the council moved to shut the cameras off.

The meeting also showed the split in the debate. Bend Police described public safety uses for the cameras, including stolen-vehicle recovery and serious-crime investigations. Residents were not only debating whether cameras can help police. They were debating whether the contract and settings gave the city enough control.

That is why Bend belongs in the city file. The city had a real law-enforcement use case, but the trust issue still won the day because the data-sharing controls were not clear enough to the public.

How Bend fits the national pattern

NPR reported in February 2026 that cities around the country were debating whether to keep automatic license plate readers because of privacy concerns and fears that local data could aid federal immigration enforcement.

NPR also reported that at least 30 localities had either deactivated Flock cameras or canceled contracts since the beginning of 2025, with much of the activity happening in the prior three months. It named places including Flagstaff, Cambridge, Eugene, and Santa Cruz.

Bend fits that national pattern, but with a stronger paper trail than many cities. The concern was not only political. Local reporting pointed to specific query logs, the National Lookup setting, and a public shutdown decision.

What Oregon changed after these fights

The Source Weekly reported that Oregon's Senate Bill 1516, signed by Gov. Tina Kotek on March 31, 2026, restricts ALPR sharing to state and local agencies. The same report said the law also shortens retention for captured plate data not tied to a court proceeding or ongoing criminal investigation to no more than 30 days, and requires audits every 30 days with public audit reporting.

For cities, that is the bigger policy takeaway. The contract, software settings, state law, and audit process all have to line up. If one layer is vague, the others have to carry too much weight.

Bend also shows why cities should not wait for residents to discover the problem through public records. Sharing settings, audit logs, retention, and outside-agency access should be explained before cameras go live.

What other cities should learn from Bend

Before approving Flock cameras, a city should ask whether National Lookup, state lookup, reciprocal sharing, partner agency access, hotlist matching, and public transparency tools are on or off by default. It should ask who can change those settings and whether council receives notice before any change.

The city should also require a public audit process. Flock says every search is recorded and tied to a user, and its transparency materials describe reviewable search records and public-facing transparency tools. Cities should turn those promises into a local reporting requirement, not leave them as vendor marketing.

Most important, the council should ask the Bend question before signing: if an outside agency searches tomorrow, will the city know who searched, why they searched, what they reached, and whether the search complied with local law.

The bottom line

Bend's Flock camera story is not a simple pro-camera or anti-camera story. It is a control story.

The city saw enough public-safety value that police wanted a replacement vendor. But the public saw enough privacy and immigration risk that council shut off the cameras and let the Flock contract wind down.

For any city considering Flock, Bend is the warning label. The real vote is not just about cameras on poles. It is about who can search the data, what the default settings do, what the audit logs prove, and whether residents learn the truth before or after the system is already live.

Sources used

The Source Weekly, Federal Immigration Officials Made 279 Queries into Bend's Flock Safety Data in its First Three Weeks, May 6, 2026: https://www.bendsource.com/news/localnews/federal-immigration-officials-made-279-queries-into-bends-flock-safety-data-in-its-first-three-weeks/

OPB, Bend is the latest Oregon city to turn off Flock cameras, January 8, 2026: https://www.opb.org/article/2026/01/08/bend-flock-cameras-ai-license-plate-camera-law-enforcement/

NPR, Why some cities are ditching their Flock license plate readers, February 17, 2026: https://www.npr.org/2026/02/17/nx-s1-5612825/flock-contracts-canceled-immigration-survillance-concerns

OregonLive, Oregon's most Latino city removes Flock cameras after audit confirms immigration agencies accessed data, June 25, 2026: https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2026/06/oregons-most-latino-city-removes-flock-cameras-after-audit-confirms-immigration-agencies-accessed-data.html

Flock Safety, Privacy, Data & Civil Liberties Policies: https://www.flocksafety.com/trust

Flock Safety, How Flock Builds Transparency into Public Safety Technology, May 22, 2026: https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/how-flock-builds-transparency-into-public-safety-technology