Columbus City Council is holding a public hearing Aug. 10, on the future of Flock Safety's license plate reader cameras, after a July audit revealed the system had been searched more than 15,000 times for possible immigration-related reasons since the city's contract began in 2023.

The hearing, organized by council member Emmanuel Remy, comes as Upper Arlington resident Paul Shannon has emerged as a vocal critic of the technology. Shannon, founder of the Upper Arlington chapter of the national watchdog group DeFlock, has publicly called for Columbus to cancel its Flock contract and for stronger laws governing police surveillance.

"That sort of back door into immigration searches is really concerning," Shannon told WOSU. "It's just a totally opaque system where we really don't have an idea of what they're doing."

What the audit found

The July audit found no searches came directly from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But privacy advocates have noted ICE does not need a direct Flock contract to access the network. A local police department can run searches on its behalf.

Columbus police told WOSU they could not determine which specific agencies had accessed their data through the system's statewide and nationwide sharing features.

In response, Mayor Andrew Ginther ordered the Columbus Division of Police to disable both features. Columbus police had already shut off nationwide sharing on June 3, shifting to individually vetting out-of-state agencies for ICE agreements. The statewide feature was disabled after the audit.

Contract decision looms

Remy said "everything's on the table" regarding the city's Flock contract, which expires in December 2026. Columbus currently has no local laws or ordinances governing automated license plate reader technology. Only police department policy governs the cameras, which the ACLU of Ohio says holds no force of law.

Columbus police operate 65 active Flock cameras, with 11 more planned. DeFlock's mapping data shows Franklin County has 580 Flock cameras total across all agencies, placing the county in the top 20% of cameras per capita nationally.

CPD Deputy Chief Tim Myers has warned against removing the cameras, saying they aided in solving approximately 60% of Columbus homicides last year.

What this means for Upper Arlington

Upper Arlington Police told NBC4 their own Flock system is properly managed. As we reported Aug. 6, the division said it found no evidence that ICE or other federal immigration enforcement agencies improperly accessed local data. The system has assisted in more than 200 investigations since the beginning of 2026.

Upper Arlington Police said they routinely monitor how Flock data is accessed, conduct regular audits of user and network activity, and review sharing settings with the ability to modify permissions when necessary.

Upper Arlington uses the same Flock network and data-sharing infrastructure that the Columbus audit examined. No outcome from Monday's hearing has been announced.

Columbus City Council has not set a timeline for any vote on the contract's future. The contract expires in December.