Flock Donations to Local Politicians’ Groups Skyrocket as Protests Against AI Cameras Mount

Flock Donations to Local Politicians’ Groups Skyrocket

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Flock Donations to Local Politicians’ Groups Skyrocket as Protests Against AI Cameras Mount

Mayors and governors control many of Flock’s contracts for its AI-powered surveillance cameras. It’s donating to their associations.

Matt Sledge

September 4 2026, 5:00 a.m. ET

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!COSTA MESA, CA - August 17: A Flock camera is located at the corner of Harbor Blvd. and Gisler Ave. in Costa Mesa on Monday, August 17, 2026. In July, the Costa Mesa City Council decided to keep its three-year contract with Flock Safety, the provider of surveillance cameras that automatically log license plates. (Photo by Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)

A Flock camera located at the corner of Harbor Blvd. and Gisler Ave. in Costa Mesa, Calif., seen on Aug. 17, 2026.

Photo: Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images

As fed-up activists

target Flock, the AI-powered surveillance camera company is battling back with a massive increase in donations to associations for mayors and other local officials.

Since the beginning of 2025, Flock has given 700 percent more to the partisan groups representing mayors, attorneys general, and governors than in the previous three years. The giving has gone to Democratic and Republican groups alike.

Donating to those groups is a time-worn strategy for companies under scrutiny. The gifts can sometimes reap face time with elected officials. Two major Flock competitors in the license-plate reader industry, Axon and Motorola Solutions, have also donated widely.

One group that received money from Flock, the Democratic Mayors of America, defended its decision to accept $30,000. A spokesperson said reports of Flock misuse are “deeply unsettling,” while arguing that the donations gave Flock no influence over local mayors.

> Since the beginning of 2025, Flock donated a quarter-million dollars to a bipartisan slate of groups.

Critics of money in politics have long raised concerns that such donations create, at a minimum, the appearance of a conflict of interest. A surveillance skeptic said the groups could face blowback.

“There’s a reputational risk for them accepting donations from Flock at this time,” said Torin Monahan, a professor of communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Flock did not respond to a request for comment.

Over the past year, Flock has faced intense pushback from activists on the left and right over perceived civil liberties abuses. Flock was forced to admit that immigration officials had access to its data, despite earlier denials in the middle of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown last year. Dozens of police officers have also been accused of abusing Flock’s database to track people, often former romantic partners.

Flock was founded in 2017, but it was only five years after that that it began doling out money to what are known as 527 groups, according to records compiled by the nonprofit news outlet ProPublica. The so-called 527 groups can raise unlimited funds directly from corporations and spend that money on key political races.

Flock’s giving began at a relatively meager rate: From 2022 to 2024, the company gave $20,000 to the Democratic Mayors Association and $10,000 to its Republican counterpart, the Community Leaders of America.

Its spending has skyrocketed since then. Since the beginning of 2025, the company donated a total of $240,000 to a longer list of groups that includes the Democratic and Republican Governors Associations and the Democratic and Republican Attorneys General Associations.

Flock’s pattern of donating to 527 groups was identified by a widely cited critic of the company, Jason Hunyar, who asked on his blog what the company was receiving in exchange for those donations.

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**Influence** Investments

The donations came as Flock was hiring an army of lobbyists. It has spent more than $2 million on state and federal lobbying since the start of 2025, according to a recent report from the transparency group OpenSecrets.

The rise of that multi-pronged influence campaign coincided with intense pushback to the company’s practices. Several members of Congress have proposed either outright bans or stricter regulations on Flock and other license-plate readers.

Much of the activism against Flock thus far has come at the local level. Scores of cities and other local governments have rejected or canceled Flock contracts or deactivated the company’s cameras since the start of 2026, according to the advocacy group DeFlock.

The suspicion crosses party lines. In Knox County, Tennessee, Republican Mayor Glenn Jacobs — the former professional wrestler Kane — recently led a campaign to cancel the company’s contract there. In Arizona, Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that she was launching a review of Flock and other camera networks.

Flock is not the only license-plate reader company that has routed money to political groups. Motorola Solutions, which counts cameras as one product among many in its portfolio, has donated more than $986,000 since the start of 2023, according to public records.

Axon, which also hawks Tasers and body-worn cameras, has donated $225,000 to Democratic and Republican attorney general groups over the same period. (Motorola Solutions and Axon did not respond to requests for comment.)

**Making Connections**

Corporate donations to 527 groups long been controversial. Companies can use the groups to build connections with the same elected officials making decisions about whether to purchase their products and services.

More than a decade ago, the New York Times documented how corporations facing lawsuits used donations to the Republican and Democratic attorney general groups to cozy up to decision-makers.

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On its website, the Democratic Mayors Association touts a program that connects mayors “with leaders from the private sector, organized labor, advocacy groups, and partner organizations to build relationships, share ideas, and take on the most pressing challenges facing America’s cities.”

That group defended its decision to accept donations from Flock.

“No donation made to the Democratic Mayors Association guarantees any form of influence over the mayors, no matter who the donor is,” said a spokesperson. “The reporting we’ve seen about police departments across the country misusing Flock cameras and the data is deeply unsettling, which is why mayors across the country have taken action to implement strict guardrails or ban them altogether. Ultimately, Democratic mayors have presided over a historic drop in crime and have proven they know how to keep their communities safe. Each mayor makes their own decisions about what is best for their cities, and we trust their judgement.”

The Democratic Governors Association also defended its donati