Flock gave police a switch that strips their public audit logs, and another that takes the portal offline

Flock Safety's Transparency Portal is the company's public accountability showcase. It is a page where a police department publishes live figures on how it uses its license plate readers, including a search audit that lists why each search was run. In March 2026, Flock told a California customer it could switch most of that off.

A product email sent to the Capitola Police Department on March 5, 2026 lays out the controls. "You can now choose which fields to include in your Public Search Audit export," it reads. "The following columns can be toggled on or off based on your agency's preferences: Search Reason, Case Number, Offense Type, User ID." The same email adds that agencies "can now temporarily or permanently remove their Transparency Portal when updates are needed."

Those four fields are most of the audit. Switch them off and what a resident can see is search dates and camera counts.

Flock announced part of this itself. An October 30, 2025 post on the company blog described the export controls and gave a reason for them: officers sometimes type sensitive detail about an active investigation into the search reason field. Agencies could include search reason, include case number, include both, or "remove both entirely." The company called the change "a restoration of local autonomy."

That post said nothing about Offense Type or User ID. It said nothing about removing the portal. Those appear in the email to Capitola five months later.

A second email, dated April 13, 2026, introduced an opt-in tool called Audit Assistance along with a caution. "If your agency is in a state with broad public records laws, we'd recommend evaluating how a data-aggregation view like Audit Assistance is treated under those laws." A third, from April 2, promoted a sharing-certification course for California law enforcement and noted that "FOIA or legal interpretation questions should be directed to your CSM."

The portal exists because departments wanted something to point at when residents asked how the cameras were being used. It answers that question with data pulled live from the system, which is what makes it useful and also what makes it a record. A department that does not like the answer can now choose which parts of it appear, or take the page down.

The emails were produced by the Capitola Police Department in response to a California Public Records Act request, production 124, Bates CAP_PRA_124_000237, 000420 and 000425. Flock's October 2025 announcement is on its blog.