Florida Bans Flock Cameras, License Plate Readers From State Roads. A Democrat Running for Governor Says It Doesn’t Go Far Enough.
- 30 days the deadline FDOT gave agencies to remove license-plate-reader cameras from state roads before the agency tears them out itself — FDOT Memorandum No. 26-01, Aug. 31, 2026
- ~700 Flock and other automated license-plate-reader cameras reported removed statewide under the order — a widely cited estimate, not a figure FDOT has itself published — Local10, Fox 13 News
- 9,500 ALPR devices tracked across all Florida jurisdictions combined — state, county, city, and private; only the smaller state-roads subset is covered by this order — Reason, crowd-sourced tracking
- $8,300,000,000 Flock Safety's private valuation, built on a network the ACLU counts at roughly 120,000 cameras in 5,000-plus U.S. communities — Fortune, ACLU
On August 31, 2026, the Florida Department of Transportation issued Engineering and Operations Memorandum No. 26-01, revoking every general-use permit allowing automated license-plate-reader cameras — including devices made by the company Flock Safety — on the State Highway System. The memo, signed by FDOT Chief Operating Officer and Assistant Secretary of Transportation Will Watts, gives agencies 30 days to pull their own equipment. Anything still standing after that, FDOT says it will remove itself.
The order landed four days after Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) stood at Florida International University and called plate-reader deployment across his state “out of control,” warning against what he described as a coming “digital AI surveillance state.” It is a message that has scrambled the usual partisan lines in Florida’s open governor’s race: a Republican sheriff is objecting to how fast the order moved, a Democratic candidate says it should have gone further, and a GOP rival is praising it as Fourth Amendment vindication.
What follows is what the memo actually does, why DeSantis wants the Legislature to make it permanent next spring, who in both parties is pushing back and why, and how Florida’s move fits into a wider reckoning already underway in Texas and Arizona over the same technology.
FDOT’s memo does not mince words about why it acted. “The recent exponential increase in deployments along our roadways, coupled with concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes merit [sic] immediate action to preserve Floridians’ sovereignty and quality of life,” it reads. The compliance deadline is September 30, 2026; the affected devices are the automated license-plate readers — Flock’s cameras chief among them — that local police departments, sheriffs’ offices, and toll authorities had mounted on state rights-of-way under general-use permits FDOT is now voiding wholesale.
News outlets have widely reported that roughly 700 cameras are coming down statewide under this specific order, though that number traces to local reporting rather than an FDOT tally. It is also a much narrower slice than the picture in Florida overall: independent, crowd-sourced tracking puts the state’s total ALPR footprint — state, county, city, and privately owned devices combined, including cameras guarding gated communities and shopping centers that this order does not touch — at roughly 9,500. FDOT’s memo reaches only the cameras bolted to state highway infrastructure; the rest of Florida’s surveillance network stays exactly where it is unless individual counties and cities act on their own.
DeSantis framed the fight in blunt, non-ideological terms at his August 27 press conference, arguing the issue was about the government’s reach into ordinary movement, not partisanship. “It’s really none of the government’s damn business,” he said, adding that Florida did not want “a digital AI surveillance state where everything we’re doing is tracked at all times.” He also pointed at the business model behind the cameras directly: “You can make some money selling cameras, but you can make a lot more money if you can sell people’s data.”
DeSantis cited a specific misuse case to make the stakes concrete: “We know there was an officer in Florida who was using the LPR data to track like an ex-girlfriend.” He wants more than a memo that a successor could quietly reverse. He is asking the Florida Legislature to pass permanent statutory restrictions on plate-reader use when it convenes in spring 2027 — converting what is currently an executive-agency action into law that would outlast his own administration.
Gov. DeSantis: We don't want a digital AI surveillance state where everything we're doing is tracked at all times.
Flock Safety disputes the characterization. CEO Garrett Langley responded to the wave of criticism directly: “We’re not Big Brother. We’re focused on protecting people.” The company’s cameras, it argues, exist to help police find stolen cars and missing children — a defense that several Florida law-enforcement officials, including some who otherwise support the governor, are not fully abandoning even as they comply with his order.
Florida’s 2026 governor’s race has turned this into a genuine cross-partisan fight rather than a predictable one. Republican Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), running for governor, backed the removal in constitutional terms: “The 4th Amendment is not up for debate in Florida.” Fellow GOP primary contender James Fishback (R-FL) made blocking Flock a talking point in a recent gubernatorial debate as well.
Byron Donalds on the Flock camera order: 'The 4th Amendment is not up for debate in Florida.'
But the Democrat in the race is not the one defending the cameras. Democratic gubernatorial candidate David Jolly (D-FL) — a former Republican congressman who re-registered as a Democrat — wants a stronger policy than DeSantis has ordered: a warrant requirement before plate data can be searched, plus an outright ban on using the data for immigration enforcement. Jolly has separately criticized the governor’s execution and timing, calling for a special legislative session rather than a 30-day administrative scramble.
Clip from the gubernatorial debate on blocking Flock camera surveillance in Florida.
Law enforcement itself is split on the rollout, not the underlying concern. Miami-Dade County Sheriff Rosie Cordero-Stutz (R) suspended her county’s entire license-plate-reader program the same day the order came down, but pushed back on how abruptly it arrived: “This technology has helped apprehend murderers and robbers, and saved children from being abducted… but technology must come with appropriate safeguards.” Miami Beach Mayor Steven Meiner (nonpartisan office) led a group of South Florida mayors making the same point: “A blanket revocation with no transition plan puts public safety at risk.”
Florida Democratic Party Chair Nikki Fried offered a different critique — not of the policy, but of the politics behind it: “Republicans have been in charge for 30 years… Now the governor wants credit for sounding the alarm.” Taken together, the reactions describe a debate that cuts through both parties rather than across them: Republicans split between civil-liberties hawks and public-safety officials, and the leading Democrat pushing for more restriction than the Republican governor has ordered.
Florida is not acting alone, though no other state has gone as far. Days before FDOT’s memo, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) ordered a halt to state funding for Flock cameras — a funding cutoff rather than the full removal mandate Florida imposed. In Arizona, Attorney General Kris Mayes (D-AZ) separately launched a statewide review of Flock surveillance and its implications for Arizonans’ privacy rights — a Democratic official raising the same alarm from the opposite side of the aisle.
“We're not Big Brother. We're focused on protecting people.”
Garrett Langley, CEO, Flock Safety
The company at the center of all three states’ scrutiny has grown fast enough to draw it. Flock Safety, per the ACLU, has deployed roughly 120,000 cameras across more than 5,000 communities in 49 states. Fortune reports the company is privately valued at $8,300,000,000, with more than $500,000,000 in annual recurring revenue. That scale is precisely what DeSantis cited as the problem: a private company’s plate-reading network expanding faster than any state’s rules for it.
Florida agencies have until September 30, 2026 to comply before FDOT removes any remaining devices itself. That deadline settles only the state-roads question; the roughly 9,500 ALPR devices tracked across the rest of Florida’s counties, cities, and private deployments are untouched unless local governments act independently. The bigger fight is still ahead: DeSantis wants the Legislature to convert his administrative order into permanent law when it convenes in spring 2027, and Jolly is already campaigning on going further still with a warrant requirement and an immigration-enforcement data ban. Whoever wins Florida’s governor’s race next year will decide which version becomes permanent.
FDOT’s August 31 memo strips license-plate-reader permits off Florida’s state highways within 30 days, and DeSantis wants the Legislature to make the ban permanent next spring. But this is not a simple partisan story: a Republican sheriff is objecting to the rollout’s speed, a Republican mayor is warning about public safety, and the Democrat running for governor says the order should go further, not less far, with a warrant requirement and an immigration-data ban. Texas has cut funding for the same cameras; Arizona’s Democratic Attorney General is reviewing them too. The roughly 9,500 ALPR devices spread across Florida’s counties and cities, outside FDOT’s reach, are the unfinished half of this debate.
