Following Florida Department of Transportation's decision this week to remove automated Flock cameras from state right-of-ways due to rapid expansion and data privacy concerns, the Palm Beach County hit the brakes on police license plate readers over privacy fears.
Commissioners this week voted to pause new permits for the automated cameras on county roads.
“These cameras don’t just photograph criminals they also photograph everyone who drives past them," county commissioner Joel Flores said.
This week's decision by FDOT to remove Flock cameras caught the attention of Palm Beach County commissioner Flores, who calls the license plate reader cameras an intrusive, mass surveillance network.
READ MORE: FDOT revokes permits for Flock cameras installed on state land next to roads
“Public safety and privacy do not have to compete,” Flores added during a regular commission meeting this week. “We can protect our communities while also protecting the rights of the people who live here. This is the balance I believe governments should provide.”
Flock Safety is a surveillance technology company that operates a vast nationwide network of automated cameras that record the license plate numbers and other characteristics of all passing vehicles every day. Thousands of law enforcement agencies in 49 states can search and share Flock’s data across jurisdictions to aid their investigations.
Police have credited the technology as an important crime-fighting innovation that has helped locate missing people and track suspects in violent crimes. But some critics say its pervasiveness amounts to unconstitutional warrantless mass surveillance.
The Palm Beach Sheriff's Office currently operates 83 license plate readers, according to county records. The board also voted 7-0 to demand answers from the sheriff on data retention and voted to pause all new camera permits in county right-of-ways.
Commissioner Maria Sachs, like others on the commission, point out that the ameras have massive public safety benefits — even sharing her own experience of a camera recovering her stolen truck — others are deeply uneasy about where the metadata goes.
But Commissioner Gregg K. Weiss warned that without proper oversight, the systems could track innocent drivers.
“Who owns that data? Who has access to that data,” Weiss questioned. “And how is that data retained? But I’m also most concerned about this data being sold to third parties.”
The county plans to hold a public workshop to address these surveillance questions in the coming weeks.
READ MORE: Cameras using AI will make West Palm Beach a 'smart city.' Privacy is a top concern
The Flock cameras are very different from the CS3 cameras installed on Clematis Street in West Palm Beach, say city officials.
The City of West Palm Beach partnered with the Center for Smart Streetscapes, or CS3 — a National Science Foundation-funded research group led by Columbia and Florida Atlantic universities — to study mobility and understand how people move across the city.
Through their "Mobility Intelligence Project," and the 55 AI-powered sensors currently deployed along Clematis Street, the tech tracks pedestrian flow, crosswalk safety, and even urban heat.
CS3’s sensors use "digital cousin" technology. Instead of recording or saving raw street video of real people, the AI instantly converts captured activity into anonymized representations like digital avatars or silhouettes.
No personally identifiable information is ever recorded, according to the experts involved, and all the data is completely public.
"All data collected through the MIP is made publicly available," a city rep to WLRN this week. "The public has access to the same data available to researchers, and there is no personally identifiable information that would require a subpoena to access."
CS3 recently provided an update on its project in West Palm Beach during the January 5, 2026 CRA meeting.
View the full presentation here: CS3 Presentation to the West Palm Beach CRA , at the 7:21 mark.
