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License-plate readers · Boulder

Boulder

Using license-plate readers · 7 agencies documented

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Boulder County Sheriff's Office

Status
Program documented, current use unconfirmed
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
Count not documented
Count not reported.
  1. 2022 The sheriff's office began using Flock cameras, according to a 2023 Colorado Hometown Weekly report. (GovTech / Colorado Hometown Weekly, July 3, 2023)
  2. Dec. 2025 Longmont's police chief named Boulder County among the agencies whose cameras Longmont could lose access to if it dropped Flock, Boulder Reporting Lab reported. (Boulder Reporting Lab, Dec. 11, 2025)
  3. Oct. 2026 Boulder Reporting Lab reported that Boulder County has no Flock account. (Boulder Reporting Lab, Oct. 8, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • The sources conflict. A 2023 Colorado Hometown Weekly report (via a GovTech reprint) quoted a sheriff's commander saying the office began using Flock in 2022. In December 2025, Longmont's police chief listed Boulder County among agencies whose cameras Longmont could lose access to. In October 2026, Boulder Reporting Lab reported that neither Boulder County nor Nederland has a Flock account. When or whether the county's Flock use ended was not found.

Secondhand report; not yet confirmed with the agency.

Boulder Police Department

Status
Using license-plate readers
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
30
The Flock transparency portal (updated Nov. 27, 2025) lists 30 'LPR and other cameras.' Boulder Reporting Lab reported more than 40 Flock cameras in August 2026.
Contract
Flock Safety: period not stated · from March 2026 · Renewed in March 2026 under the city manager's authority, with a provision allowing exit on 30 days' notice without penalty. The cameras run under this interim contract while the city reviews other vendors. (Boulder Reporting Lab, Aug. 13, 2026; Axios Boulder, Sept. 11, 2026)
  1. 2022 Boulder police began using Flock cameras. (Axios Boulder, Sept. 16, 2025; Axios Boulder, Sept. 11, 2026)
  2. June 2025 Boulder turned off Flock's national lookup, limiting searches of its data to Colorado agencies. (City of Boulder, date not shown; Axios Boulder, Sept. 16, 2025)
  3. Nov. 27, 2025 Boulder's Flock portal listed 30 cameras, 30-day retention, 90 organizations with access, and 555 searches in the prior 30 days. (Flock Safety / Boulder Police Department, Nov. 27, 2025)
  4. March 2026 The city renewed its Flock contract with a 30-day no-penalty exit clause. (Boulder Reporting Lab, Aug. 13, 2026)
  5. April 2026 The city opened competitive bidding for plate-reader technology, inviting vendors other than Flock. (Boulder Reporting Lab, Aug. 13, 2026; Axios Boulder, Sept. 11, 2026)
  6. Sept. 2026 The city put off its vendor decision, originally due Sept. 15, 2026, until spring 2027. City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde will decide, with guidance from the council. (Axios Boulder, Sept. 11, 2026; Boulder Reporting Lab, Aug. 13, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • The city's page now gives a 14-day retention period. Axios reported in September 2026 that retention would drop from 28 days to 14.
  • The portal lists 90 organizations with access, including the Colorado State Patrol and the CBI. Barred uses listed include immigration enforcement and traffic enforcement.
  • The city says Boulder PD does not take part in immigration enforcement and has no agreement with U.S. Border Patrol for Flock searches.

From agency records.

Erie Police Department

Status
Using license-plate readers
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
24
24 Flock cameras owned by the department, in use since 2022. The Flock portal last updated May 20, 2025 also lists 24.
Contract
Flock Safety: $67,000 year · About $67,000 is in the proposed 2027 budget. The contract is expected to come up for renewal in 2027. (Yellow Scene Magazine, Oct. 21, 2026)
  1. May 20, 2025 Erie's Flock portal listed 24 owned cameras and 30-day retention. (Flock Safety / Erie Police Department, May 20, 2025)
  2. Oct. 8, 2026 The town held a town hall on the Flock cameras. No formal decision was made. (Yellow Scene Magazine, Oct. 21, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • Erie shares data with other Colorado agencies but no longer takes part in the nationwide network. Retention was shortened from 30 days to seven.
  • The portal lists immigration enforcement among barred uses.

Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.

Lafayette Police Department

Status
Using license-plate readers
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
30
30 Flock cameras, installed in 2022.
Contract
Flock Safety: $77,500 year · from 2022 · Five-year contract that began in 2022, with a $77,500 annual fee per Boulder Reporting Lab. The council removed that fee from the 2027 budget. KDVR reported funding runs through the end of January 2027. Yellow Scene described the contract as following four community meetings and a council workshop; no council approval vote was found. (Yellow Scene Magazine, June 23, 2026; FOX31 Denver (KDVR), Oct. 7, 2026; Boulder Reporting Lab, Oct. 8, 2026)
  1. 2022 Lafayette police installed 30 Flock cameras. (Yellow Scene Magazine, June 23, 2026)
  2. Oct. 29, 2024 Lafayette's Flock portal listed 30 owned cameras, 30-day retention and 85 outside organizations with access. (Flock Safety / Lafayette Police Department, Oct. 29, 2024)
  3. Oct. 6, 2026 City Council voted 5-1 to adopt a 2027 budget with no funding for the Flock contract, with Councilor Crystal Gallegos voting no. A second appropriations vote was set for Oct. 20. (Boulder Reporting Lab, Oct. 8, 2026; Yellow Scene Magazine, Oct. 21, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • The council defunded the program for 2027, so the contract is expected to end early in 2027; the map shows it as active because the cameras had not been confirmed shut off or removed in these sources. BRL reported councilors would decide later in October whether to end the contract before the end of 2026. Yellow Scene reported that ordinances setting the 2027 allocations passed unanimously, without giving the date.
  • The Flock portal, last updated Oct. 29, 2024, listed 30-day retention and 85 outside organizations, two of them (the FBI and U.S. Postal Inspection Service) marked as turned off.

Reported by news outlets; agency records not yet obtained.

Longmont Police Department (Longmont Public Safety)

Status
Use suspended
Vendors
Axon, Flock Safety
Cameras
Count not documented
Longmont removed its 15 fixed Flock cameras. The city said Sept. 17, 2026 that it has delayed deploying 15 replacement Axon cameras.
Contract
Axon: period not stated · from 2026 · Signed in spring 2026, replacing Flock. Amount and term not found. (City of Longmont, Sept. 17, 2026; Boulder Reporting Lab, Oct. 8, 2026)
  1. Dec. 9, 2025 City Council voted 5-1 to immediately pause all sharing of Longmont's Flock data, and directed staff to research what ending the contract would require. (Boulder Reporting Lab, Dec. 11, 2025)
  2. 2026 Longmont Public Safety signed an agreement with Axon for plate-reader technology to replace Flock (spring 2026, per Boulder Reporting Lab). (City of Longmont, Sept. 17, 2026; Boulder Reporting Lab, Oct. 8, 2026)
  3. Sept. 17, 2026 The city said it had taken down its 15 fixed Flock cameras and was holding back the 15 Axon replacements until it finishes reviewing its policies, audit rules and data-sharing practices; it also noted pending state legislation. (City of Longmont, Sept. 17, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • Status is 'suspended' because no plate-reader cameras are operating: the Flock cameras are gone and the Axon rollout is delayed. The city has not said the Axon agreement was canceled.

From agency records.

Louisville Police Department

Status
Ended or removed
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
20
20 Flock cameras installed (25 approved). Per the August 2025 staff memo, they remained in their original locations after being disabled.
Contract
Flock Safety: period not stated · from April 18, 2022 · approved by City Council · Resolution and service agreement approved April 18, 2022. (City of Louisville, Aug. 12, 2025)
  1. April 18, 2022 City Council approved a Flock resolution and service agreement for 25 cameras, and 20 were installed. (City of Louisville, Aug. 12, 2025)
  2. June 30, 2025 Louisville police disabled the Flock system, according to the city's August 2025 staff memo. (City of Louisville, Aug. 12, 2025)
  3. Aug. 12, 2025 City Council decided to deactivate the Flock cameras. (Boulder Reporting Lab, Oct. 8, 2026)
Conflicts and open questions
  • Before the shutoff, Louisville shared its network with about 85 Colorado law enforcement organizations.
  • Boulder Reporting Lab corrected a story to say Louisville no longer has a Flock contract. Whether the physical cameras were removed is not confirmed.

From agency records.

University of Colorado Boulder Police Department

Status
Program documented, current use unconfirmed
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
Count not documented
About a dozen Flock cameras were planned for the start of the fall 2023 semester. No current count was found.
  1. July 17, 2023 CU Boulder announced that about a dozen Flock plate-reader cameras would be deployed on campus by the fall semester. (CU Boulder Today, July 17, 2023)
  2. Sept. 2025 CU police told CBS Colorado they do not share Flock data with outside agencies. (CBS Colorado, Sept. 22, 2025)
Conflicts and open questions
  • In September 2025, CBS Colorado reported that CU police said they do not share Flock data with outside agencies. No use was documented after Oct. 30, 2025.

From agency records.

Statewide

  1. May 23, 2025 Gov. Jared Polis signed SB25-276. It extends existing limits on disclosing personal identifying information for federal immigration enforcement from state agencies to counties, cities and other local governments, with civil penalties for intentional violations. The bill text summary does not mention plate readers specifically. Local officials, such as Longmont's police chief, have cited Colorado's bar on sharing personal information for immigration enforcement in discussing plate-reader data. (Complete Colorado, June 9, 2025; ACLU of Colorado, date not shown; Colorado General Assembly, date not shown; Boulder Reporting Lab, Dec. 11, 2025)
  2. 2026 Colorado law currently lets government agencies keep plate-reader data for as long as three years, according to SB26-070 sponsor Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson (via Colorado Newsline) and CBS Colorado. Flock's default retention is 30 days, CBS Colorado reported. (Colorado Newsline, April 29, 2026; CBS Colorado, Sept. 22, 2025)
  3. Feb. 2026 The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced SB26-070 on a 5-2 vote, with Sens. John Carson and Dylan Roberts opposed. Colorado Newsline reported the vote as taking place on a Monday; its story is dated Feb. 24, 2026. The bill would have required a warrant for plate-reader database searches once three days had passed since a crime, blocked most sharing with out-of-state agencies, prohibited sale of historical data, required audits of who accesses the data, and limited retention to 30 days unless an active investigation needed more. Sponsor: Sen. Lynda Zamora Wilson; co-sponsors Sen. Judy Amabile and Reps. Yara Zokaie and Kenny Nguyen. (Colorado Newsline, Feb. 24, 2026)
  4. April 2026 SB26-070 died on the Senate floor when, at its sponsors' request, it was laid over until July 4, after the session's end. Colorado Newsline reported the day as a Wednesday in a story dated April 29, 2026. Sen. Judy Amabile told Colorado Newsline that Gov. Polis had threatened to veto the bill if it kept the warrant requirement; the governor's office did not immediately respond to the outlet. Police, sheriffs, district attorneys and cities opposed the bill, Colorado Public Radio reported. (Colorado Newsline, April 29, 2026; Colorado Public Radio, April 30, 2026)

State agencies

Colorado State Patrol

Status
Program documented, current use unconfirmed
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
Count not documented
No CSP-owned plate-reader program or count was found.
  1. Nov. 27, 2025 Listed among organizations with access to Boulder PD's Flock data. (Flock Safety / Boulder Police Department, Nov. 27, 2025)
Conflicts and open questions
  • The Boulder PD Flock transparency portal (updated Nov. 27, 2025) lists the Colorado State Patrol among the organizations with access to Boulder's Flock data. That shows access to a local network, not a CSP-run camera program.

From agency records.

Colorado Bureau of Investigation

Status
Program documented, current use unconfirmed
Vendors
Flock Safety
Cameras
Count not documented
No CBI-owned plate-reader program or count was found.
  1. Nov. 27, 2025 Listed among organizations with access to Boulder PD's Flock data. (Flock Safety / Boulder Police Department, Nov. 27, 2025)
Conflicts and open questions
  • The Boulder PD Flock portal (updated Nov. 27, 2025) lists the CBI among the organizations with access to Boulder's Flock data. No information was found on CIAC's handling of plate-reader data.

From agency records.