Flock changed its vehicle flock camera lookup rules today, cutting the default ALPR retention period to 7 days and making new safeguards mandatory for law enforcement customers by the end of this year. Existing customers keep their current retention settings unless they adopt the new recommendation. The company also said it will publish a plain-English contract explanation next week.
Flock Safety Updates ALPR Rules
The shift is bigger than a retention tweak. Flock said it originally set the default ALPR retention period to 30 days unless state or local policy set a shorter or longer period, but it is now recommending 7 days instead. The company said over 90% of searches without a full plate are done within a week, and customers who adopt the 7-day recommendation will receive Evidence Mode at no cost.
Evidence Mode will roll out in the coming weeks. Detectives can preserve specific ALPR data as evidence for an active investigation in cold storage, consistent with existing laws and policies. That gives customers a narrower default window while still leaving a way to keep selected records when a case needs them.
Audit Assistance and Case Codes
Flock is also making misuse detection mandatory for every customer. More than one-third of customers already use Audit Assistance, and by the end of this year all law enforcement customers will have to adopt it. Flock will also institute proactive lockout, automatically suspending access when a user’s activity meets defined criteria for abnormal behavior pending administrator review.
In July 2025, Flock introduced an optional case code requirement for searches. By the end of this year, that requirement becomes mandatory for all law enforcement searches, although agencies may bypass it in emergencies. Every exigent search will be flagged for administrator review. Flock said customers own the data captured by their ALPR cameras, but it is now putting more layers between access and use.
Offense Filtering and Sharing
The company is also introducing Offense filtering for sharing. Cities can choose which offenses other agencies may use to access their cameras, so one city could allow another to search only for a stolen vehicle, missing person, or violent crime while blocking immigration-enforcement-related searches. That gives agencies a way to narrow outside access without turning off sharing entirely.
The practical result is a split system: current customers can keep their existing retention periods, but law enforcement users face new review rules, mandatory case codes, and automatic suspension triggers by the end of this year. The open question is how many agencies will move to the 7-day recommendation before the new safeguards land, and how many will keep the longer retention periods they already use.
