Lawton, Okla. — Lawton has begun using Flock Safety cameras – automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems mounted on poles around the city that scan passing vehicles and log the results.
Residents and advocates have raised a number of questions about the system, including:
- What exactly the cameras collect
- How long the data is kept
- How much the City is paying
- Who can access the information, both inside and outside Lawton
In October 2025, Lawton Town Crier submitted open records requests to the City of Lawton seeking contracts, invoices, policies, and related communications about Flock and ALPR use. The City has provided some of those records; other materials, including any written ALPR policy and audit-log procedures, have not yet been released despite follow-up requests and clarifications.
This article summarizes what can be confirmed from the documents produced so far. A full document archive is available here:
👉 Flock Safety ALPR – Contracts, Invoices, and Records (Lawton, OK)
https://wiki.lawtontowncrier.org/books/flock-camera/page/flock-safety-alpr-contracts-invoices-and-records-lawton-ok
What Flock is and how it operates
Flock Safety sells automated license plate reader systems to police departments around the country. The cameras are small, often solar-powered units placed near intersections, neighborhood entrances, and other high-traffic locations.
Each camera is designed to capture:
- the license plate
- date and time of the scan
- the location
- additional vehicle details such as color and body style
Officers can search the system for plates or vehicles that match a description or have been placed on a “hot list.” When there is a match, the system can generate an alert.
On paper, the system is marketed as a tool for locating stolen vehicles, wanted suspects, and supporting AMBER Alerts. In practice, it also creates a searchable history of vehicle movements, which is where many of the privacy and oversight questions arise.
While the City of Lawton has purchased into the Flock ecosystem, ALPR technology is not exclusive to Flock or to government agencies. Flock and similar systems are also sold directly to private property owners, including retail chains, shopping centers, homeowners’ associations, apartment complexes, and schools. In practice, that means ALPR cameras may be running not only on city poles, but also on private lots and driveways. For example, Flock-branded cameras are installed at big-box retailers such as a Home Depot location in Fort Worth and the Lowe’s store in Lawton, and at shopping centers in the Oklahoma City metro area. Those privately operated cameras can feed into the same broader network of plate and vehicle data, effectively extending the reach of the system beyond units that are directly owned or operated by a police department.
What the records show about Lawton’s setup
Records released by the City so far show that:
- The City has a core Flock contract and renewal for a citywide ALPR system, and has also purchased additional ward-specific camera bundles.
- Invoices document camera purchases tied to Ward 2, Ward 3, and Ward 8.
- Based on the invoices currently available, Lawton has committed at least $130,100 to Flock systems to date (two core system invoices plus three ward-specific camera invoices). Additional documents could change that total as more records are released.
- Contract and order materials from Flock reference a 30-day data retention period for stored ALPR data. That retention period appears in the Flock agreement/order form, not in a separate local policy document.
All invoices and contract files received so far are posted in the document archive:
https://wiki.lawtontowncrier.org/books/flock-camera/page/flock-safety-alpr-contracts-invoices-and-records-lawton-ok
Internal “outcome” reporting for Flock-related incidents
Among the records released is an internal memo instructing officers how to document outcomes when Flock alerts are involved in calls or arrests.
According to that memo:
- When a call, traffic stop, arrest, or other incident involves a Flock alert, officers are required to complete an “outcome” form in the Flock system.
- Officers are directed to click a hand-shaped icon on the alert and enter:
- the case number,
- the number of arrests,
- whether guns or drugs were recovered, and
- any additional notes.
- The memo states that these statistics are required because the cameras were purchased with grant funding, and that outcome data is used to demonstrate effectiveness and support future purchases.
If followed consistently, this process should create a dataset tying Flock alerts to specific cases, arrests, and recoveries. Those outcome reports, or any aggregate statistics based on them, have not yet been provided in response to records requests.
The instructions memo itself is included in the wiki archive for readers who wish to review the exact language.
Requests for policy, procedures, and audit logs
The initial records requests to the City did not stop at contracts and invoices. They also asked for:
- The current ALPR policy and any prior versions
- Written rules for data retention and data sharing
- Audit-log practices (who may run searches and how that access is tracked and reviewed)
- Any procedures for handling false hits or misreads
When the first batch of records was released, it did not include any stand-alone ALPR policy, audit-log procedures, or false-hit guidance. Follow-up messages were sent to the City to clarify that these materials were still being sought and to confirm whether such documents exist in written form.
The City has indicated that the policy portion of the request was forwarded to the police department “to see if they have anything,” but, as of this publication, no separate written ALPR policy or audit-log procedure has been released.
At this stage, the public record shows how much the City has paid for Flock systems and provides a glimpse of how officers are instructed to log “success stories,” but it does not yet show the full set of rules that govern day-to-day use, limits, and oversight.
Why this matters locally
ALPR systems like Flock can be significant investigative tools. They can also quietly assemble detailed information about where vehicles travel over time.
For Lawton, several key questions remain:
- Who within the Lawton Police Department is authorized to use the Flock system, and under what conditions?
- How long is ALPR data preserved in practice, and when, if ever, is it extended beyond the 30-day period referenced in Flock’s materials?
- Which external agencies, if any, have access to Lawton’s ALPR data, and under what agreements or networks?
- How frequently do false hits occur, and what is the procedure when an innocent driver is stopped due to an ALPR misread?
- Are audit logs regularly reviewed by supervisors or any outside body to guard against misuse?
These are basic oversight questions that apply to any powerful technology used in day-to-day policing.
Ongoing reporting
Lawton Town Crier will continue to:
- Publish documents as they are released, including any additional contracts, invoices, internal memos, policies, and usage records.
- Pursue the outstanding policy and audit-log materials, including clarification on whether written ALPR policies exist and, if so, why they have not yet been produced.
- Collect and verify local experiences related to Flock and other ALPR systems, including cases where residents believe these tools played a role in how their data or traffic stops were handled.
As additional records are obtained and more questions are answered, this story will be updated and supplemented with further coverage.