The Shakopee Police Department (SPD) uses Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) technology as an investigative and public-safety tool. The following FAQ explains how Shakopee's system works, why it is used, how officers access the information, what safeguards are in place, and how the department balances public safety with privacy, transparency, and accountability.
Flock is not a replacement for police officers, probable cause, search warrants, or sound investigative work. It is one investigative tool among many.
SPD remains responsible for how this technology is used. That responsibility includes limiting access, documenting the purpose of searches, maintaining audit trails, supervising users, complying with data-retention requirements, undergoing independent audits, and being transparent with the community about both the benefits and limitations of the technology.
The goal is straightforward: use effective technology to protect the community and assist crime victims while maintaining the legal safeguards, privacy protections, and transparency.
Latest Updates
On Sept. 10, 2026, Chief Pearson and other PD leadership met with Flock to discuss updates to the software. The following updates have been enabled within Shakopee's Flock system:
- Now included in our transparency portal is the Public Search Audit function. Enabling this feature will allow the community to see exactly what searches have been conducted. It will tell you the ID of the user who conducted the search, the date of the search, the reason for the search, how many networks were searched (it will always show two because we only share with Prior Lake, and they share with us, meaning our network is two), and lastly the offense type. This was enabled starting today and is currently displayed on the public portal.
- We enabled the Flock Security Audit Information. This displays at the bottom of our transparency portal.
- We enabled the Internal Audit Function within our database. This allows for a continuous audit of searches and will alert administrators of any “red flag” patterns. For example, if a user searches the same license plate 15 times in a short period of time, the system will flag this activity alerting administrators to essentially investigate this activity and verify that it’s not a misuse of the database.
Flock Safety builds technology that helps communities deter crime, respond to emergencies, and investigate safety incidents. Flock Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras capture point-in-time images of vehicles traveling on public roadways and are paired with software to identify license plates and certain vehicle characteristics such as vehicle make, color, and body type.
The information captured from point-in-time images can assist officers and investigators with locating stolen vehicles, identifying vehicles associated with crimes, finding missing or endangered persons, locating wanted persons, developing investigative leads, and corroborating other evidence.
Flock is an investigative tool. It does not determine whether someone is guilty of a crime, replace an officer's judgment, or independently establish the legal justification for police action.
The Shakopee Police Department uses seven ALPR Flock cameras.
- Zumbro Avenue/Highview Terrace
- CR 101/Lewis Street Bridge — Offline/Stolen- relocating to Highway 169/Marystown Road
- 12th Avenue/County Road 83 — Being relocated to Highway 169/County Road 83
- 17th Avenue/Marshall Road — Being relocated to Highway 169/Marschall Road
- County Road 83/Tintacanku
- Old Carriage Road/County Road 21
- CR 101/Stagecoach — Not operational since February 2026/Awaiting Reinstall
- Quarry Lake Park – No license plate reader, cameras only (x3) – Not yet installed
There are also privately-owned Flock cameras in and around the metropolitan area, including cameras associated with commercial areas. Those cameras are separate from the City of Shakopee's system and cannot access our system.
Shakopee does not share its Flock data with private businesses. A private entity may, however, voluntarily provide its own camera information to law enforcement when legally permitted, just as a business can provide other privately owned surveillance footage to investigators.
Flock ALPR cameras are motion-activated cameras that capture a still-image when a vehicle passes through a defined location. They do not record continuous video like a conventional surveillance camera.
Under Minnesota law, ALPR data is limited to information such as the license plate number; date, time, and location the vehicle passed through based on the fixed ALPR camera installation; and photographs of the license plate, vehicle, and surrounding area.
SPD does not assign officers to sit and continuously monitor each camera. The system is automated. When a camera identifies a license plate associated with qualifying law enforcement information, it can generate an alert. An officer reviews the alert and determines whether a legitimate law-enforcement response is appropriate.
Historical searches can also be conducted within the SPD’s data retention period when officers or investigators have a legitimate investigative reason.
In short, the cameras are motion-activated and have the ability to capture still-images of vehicles day and night, but they are not the equivalent of officers watching a continuous 24/7 video feed of the street.
Minnesota law limits ALPR data to specific vehicle-related information, including license plate number; date, time, and location of the read; and photographs of the license plate, vehicle, and surrounding area.
Flock’s technology does not use or capture facial recognition, nor any biometric information, such as race or gender. A user cannot search the system by human characteristics.
The system does use machine learning, which falls under the broad umbrella of “AI,” though it's a different technology from the large language models (commonly referred to as LLMs) most people picture. It doesn't reason, generate content, or make decisions.
The analysis happens at image capture. When a camera detects motion, it captures a still image of the vehicle, and the system reads the plate and identifies attributes like make, color, and body type. Those attributes are stored alongside the image, which makes them searchable later. The search tool then queries data that already exists with the image.
The technology does not determine whether someone is guilty, whether probable cause exists, or whether someone should be arrested.
Automated plate recognition can occasionally be incomplete or inaccurate. Officers therefore remain responsible for evaluating and verifying the plate, vehicle, underlying alert, and legal justification before taking enforcement action.
Flock can compare license plates captured via still-image from a camera against appropriate law-enforcement databases, including information supplied through the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA).
Hot-list information may involve stolen vehicles or plates, wanted persons, missing or endangered persons, protection orders, officer-safety information, warrants, and other legitimate law-enforcement alerts.
When a plate matches qualifying information, the system may generate an alert that can be relayed to officers. A Flock alert is an investigative lead. It is not proof that the driver has committed a crime and does not provide automatic authorization to stop a vehicle.
Officers must consider the nature and reliability of the alert, the underlying information, their own observations, and applicable law. Officers should always verify computer-generated plate information before taking enforcement action.
Minnesota law and SPD policy require access to ALPR information to be connected to a legitimate, specified, and documented law-enforcement purpose.
When conducting a Flock search, SPD personnel are required to select an offense type, enter an incident or case number, and document the reason for the search. The system records information about the search, including the user, date and time, and other search parameters. Every search conducted in the system is documented in a permanent audit log that agency leadership can review at any time.
Flock maintains audit records showing user activity. Supervisors and administrators can review those records to determine whether searches were conducted for legitimate law-enforcement purposes. Personnel are also subject to City and Police Department standards of conduct and policies governing misuse of law-enforcement databases.
The result is an audit trail establishing who searched the system, when they searched it, and why.
Using Flock to search for a spouse, neighbor, friend, political opponent, or another person for personal curiosity, harassment, or another unauthorized purpose would violate department policy.
Additionally, SPD limits search capabilities to supervisors and investigators. Individual patrol officers do not have the authority to conduct searches. Further restrictions are in place to limit search access to authorized personnel with a legitimate operational need.
SPD has not identified or documented misuse of Shakopee’s Flock system, and the independent statutory audit did not identify misuse or noncompliance.
Yes. Minnesota state law requires an independent biennial audit regarding agencies use of ALPR.
The Shakopee Police Department recently completed its biennial independent ALPR audit and submitted the results to the Minnesota Department of Administration's Data Practices Division.
The audit confirmed that SPD is in full compliance with applicable statutory requirements, including standards governing:
- Data accuracy;
- Data protection;
- Legitimate access procedures; and
- Data-breach notification requirements.
The audit examined actual practices, including access controls, users, searches, sharing, public-use logs, audit trails, and retention—not simply whether SPD had a written policy.
Supervisors are responsible for reviewing use of the system for compliance with department policy. The Chief of Police has overall responsibility for the program, and designated administrators can review system activity to identify potentially improper searches or unauthorized activity.
The audit findings reflect SPD's ongoing commitment to accountability, transparency, privacy protection, and responsible use of technology.
Yes, to a significant degree.
Minnesota law requires agencies using ALPR technology to maintain a public log containing information such as the times ALPRs collected data, aggregate numbers of vehicle reads, databases against which information was compared, certain categories of hits, and locations of stationary readers.
SPD's ALPR policy is also publicly available, and the results of the required independent audit are public. SPD also has ALPR public portals posted on the city’s website.
There is an important privacy limitation: individual vehicle-read data are generally classified as private or nonpublic under Minnesota law, subject to statutory exceptions.
Public accountability therefore does not mean the general public can obtain a searchable database showing the movements of individual vehicles.
SPD owns and controls 100% of our data, including which agencies to share with, if any. Within law enforcement, Shakopee and the Prior Lake Police Department have direct access to Shakopee's system.
The Shakopee Police Department shares access to Flock ALPR data with the Prior Lake Police Department for legitimate law enforcement and public safety purposes. Because Shakopee and Prior Lake are neighboring jurisdictions, criminal activity, investigations, and incidents frequently cross jurisdictional boundaries or involve vehicles associated with both communities.
Providing Prior Lake officers with access to relevant Flock data allows the two departments to more effectively coordinate investigations, identify vehicles of interest, develop investigative leads, and respond to incidents that may impact both jurisdictions. This access serves an operational purpose by facilitating timely information sharing and enhancing the ability of both agencies to investigate and address criminal activity while maintaining appropriate controls on the use of ALPR data.
Agencies choose whether or not to participate in network sharing, and Shakopee has chosen to only share information with Prior Lake. Shakopee does not provide direct access to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security or U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and does not provide unrestricted direct access to any other federal, state, or local agencies.
No.
There is an important distinction between voluntarily providing system access and being legally compelled to disclose information. A valid court order could require Shakopee to provide data.
Legal process seeking Shakopee's Flock data may be directed to the City or, in some circumstances, to Flock as the service provider. If Flock receives such legal process, the City's agreement generally requires Flock to notify Shakopee, explain its intended response, and provide the City an opportunity to object before releasing the data, unless the law prohibits notice or requires a more immediate response.
Shakopee may also use its own Flock information as evidence in criminal investigations and, when relevant and legally admissible, that information may be presented in court.
At no time is the data stored locally at the Shakopee Police Department. Data is stored securely in the AWS cloud until it is automatically and permanently deleted according to SPD’s set data retention period of 30 days.
Access by Flock representatives is governed by strict policies and is not performed without a legitimate need, such as providing customer support or system maintenance as outlined in the terms of our agreement. All privileged administrators’ access by Flock personnel is logged for auditing purposes.
Flock states that customer ALPR data belongs to the customer and that it does not sell or commercially publish customer ALPR information. Its ability to access, preserve, use, or disclose Shakopee data is also limited by the City's agreement with Flock.
As for retention, Minnesota law permits ordinary non-investigative ALPR data to be retained for no more than 60 days. Shakopee's 2026 independent audit found that its system was configured for a 30-day retention period, which is within Minnesota's statutory maximum.
Information that becomes relevant to an active criminal investigation may be governed by different legal requirements.
These protections are why SPD relies on multiple layers of accountability—contractual restrictions, notice requirements, an opportunity to challenge legal demands, access controls, audit trails, department policy, Minnesota law, data-retention limits, administrative oversight, and independent auditing—rather than relying solely on trust in the vendor.
No.
A Shakopee Flock camera is not a GPS tracking device attached to a vehicle.
A Flock record generally indicates that a particular vehicle—or a vehicle matching particular characteristics—passed a particular camera at a particular time.
It does not automatically establish:
- Who was driving;
- Who was inside the vehicle;
- Why the vehicle was in the area;
- Where the vehicle ultimately traveled; or
- Whether the registered owner or anyone else committed a crime.
Those questions require additional investigation.
Yes.
Over the past several years, Shakopee's ALPR program has assisted with:
- Homicide investigations;
- KOPS alerts
- Burglary and Theft investigations;
- Recovery of stolen vehicles throughout Shakopee and the metropolitan area;
- Identification and location of vehicles associated with crimes; and
- Investigations contributing to the recovery of firearms and narcotics
The independent auditor also concluded that Shakopee was using ALPR as an effective law-enforcement tool.
These are tangible examples of the program's investigative and public-safety value.
There is not necessarily a meaningful "cost per arrest" or "cost per conviction" measurement because Flock is usually one component of a larger investigation.
Instead, SPD can evaluate the program through information such as:
- Number of queries and matches;
- Investigative leads developed;
- Stolen vehicles recovered;
- Suspects or wanted persons identified or located;
- Missing or endangered persons located;
- Evidence corroborated;
- Investigative time saved;
- Firearms and narcotics recovered; and
- Serious crimes assisted or solved.
For significant investigations, the department may also be able to compare the investigative resources and overtime historically necessary to accomplish tasks that can now be completed more efficiently with ALPR assistance.
The program's value is therefore better evaluated through both aggregate data and specific examples demonstrating how ALPR information assisted an investigation.
Yes.
Residents may raise questions or concerns about Flock through the City's normal public comment processes, including at City Council meetings.
The Council is scheduled to have a workshop discussion about Flock cameras at its regularly scheduled meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 1. The public is able to attend this meeting in person at Shakopee City Hall (485 Gorman St.), watch it via livestream, or view a recording of it after the fact.
SPD does not view public safety and privacy as mutually exclusive.
ALPR technology can provide substantial investigative benefits, but those benefits must be accompanied by meaningful safeguards governing how the technology and resulting data are collected, accessed, retained, and used.
Shakopee's most recent independent biennial audit confirmed compliance with applicable statutory requirements governing data accuracy, data protection, legitimate access procedures, and data-breach notification.
At the same time, the program has assisted SPD with homicide, theft, and burglary investigations; recovery of stolen vehicles; stolen license plates, and investigations contributing to the recovery of firearms and narcotics.
These results demonstrate that ALPR technology can provide meaningful public-safety value while still being operated within established legal, privacy, and accountability standards.
For SPD, responsible use of technology means pursuing both objectives: using effective investigative tools to protect the community and assist crime victims while maintaining appropriate privacy protections, transparency, and accountability.
Courts have generally found that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when a license plate is displayed on a vehicle traveling on a public roadway, as license plates are issued by the government and are required to be visible for public safety purposes. Roadway observations of vehicle exteriors are in plain view and do not invade a reasonable expectation of privacy. Courts have also upheld the use of LPR technology when used appropriately and in accordance with the law.
For example, in Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, a federal judge upheld the city’s use of LPR technology against a constitutional challenge. The department continues to monitor legal developments and follows applicable laws, guidance, and court decisions governing the use of this technology.
The terms and conditions contained in the Terms of Service are located at: https://www.flocksafety.com/legal/terms-and-conditions
In plain language, section 4.1 “Customer Data” of our terms and conditions means our agency owns and controls our data and grants Flock access to our data to operate the service. The T&C includes a limited license-back from the agency to Flock. This allows Flock to operate the system itself with our data (image captures and vehicle descriptive information) so that our agency, and agencies we choose to share with, can access or search our data within the system. Flock does not own nor sell customer data.
This section also notes Flock Safety is authorized to use a small fraction (less than one percent) of LPR images captured for the sole purpose of improving our product's accuracy through machine learning. Before any image is used for this purpose, it is permanently stripped of all identifying metadata, including the time, location, camera ID, and the customer who owns the camera. This fully anonymized "Training Data" cannot be searched or tied back to a specific customer or investigation. Flock does not sell customer data.
Shakopee PD owns our data. Flock LPR camera data (image captures and vehicle descriptive information) is automatically and permanently deleted on a recurring basis at the agency’s set data retention period. Authorized use of fully anonymized "Training Data" for machine learning cannot be searched or tied back to a specific customer or investigation. Anonymized data is deleted as soon as it is used to train the models.
It is important to note the differentiation between access to customer data and system access for the purpose for technical support and system maintenance.
Flock personnel access to an agency's system is governed by strict policies and is not performed without a legitimate need, such as providing customer support or system maintenance. Any system feature change activity by Flock, or a customer administrator, is permanently recorded in an Event Log that the customer can view at any time. They cannot access customer data or search a customer's data, this requires an account with a customer-specific email domain.
The LPR system maintains a comprehensive and permanent audit log of every search performed. These logs are always available to agency administrators for review. There is an internal Organization Audit that shows your agency search records in detail, and a Network Audit that shows searches performed by users from agencies with whom you choose to share data. Network Audits have sensitive information redacted, if your agency would like to know more about a search’s redacted information, they are encouraged to reach out to that agency directly.
Flock does offer a Public Search Audit option, which can expose a public-safe version of recent searches, with configurable inclusion of fields like case number, search reason, offense type, and anonymized user ID.
Pattern of Life: No, people cannot be tracked using the Flock LPR system. The system does not contain driver information such as names, dates of birth, or Social Security numbers. Flock’s technology does not capture any biometric information, such as race, gender, nor can a user search the system by human characteristics. Only the exterior of vehicles.
Heatmap: The Flock LPR system captures still images of the exterior of a vehicle, at fixed points in time, with an agency-set short data retention period. It does not create a pattern of life, as ruled by dozens of courts around the country; it cannot identify drivers and does not contain any information about the people in the vehicle. There is a map view within the Flock system called a "heat map", but it only shows where point-in-time images have been captured of a vehicle over that defined short period of time (30 days). This is very different from a pattern of life.
National Network: Flock’s National Lookup feature is completely disabled in Minnesota to comply with Minnesota state law. Therefore, all agencies in Minnesota do not have access to join that network.
Section 11.2 (Assignment) of the Terms and Conditions specifies that “The Agreement is binding on the Parties and their successors and permitted assigns.” Meaning the agreement remains valid and binding. The acquiring company would step into Flock’s position and be bound by all commitments set forth in the Terms and Conditions.
The Flock system allows for past search audit log records, as referenced above, to be accessed. The state of Minnesota requires every agency utilizing LPR technology to have an independent biennial audit. Each agency facilitates its compliance with this state requirement. So, in theory, we could have a one-year audit.
Flock Safety’s cloud platform has never experienced a data breach, and no customer data has ever been compromised. Our agreement outlines necessary efforts by Flock to provide written notice of any service disruption to the customer, to provide updates, and to resume providing access to the web interface as soon as reasonably possible after the event giving rise to the service disruption.
Flock further retains Bishop Fox, an offensive security firm, to conduct continuous, adversarial security testing across every product in our ecosystem: hardware, software, and cloud infrastructure. Bishop Fox operates as an independent adversary. Their job is to test our systems and report their findings, so any vulnerabilities are identified and addressed.
An image is captured on an LPR camera and then securely transmitted over a private cellular network to cloud storage hosted in the United States. All data is encrypted using industry-standard algorithms both in transit and at rest. Flock’s LPR cameras are both National Defense Authorization Act and CJIS compliant. Cameras have no public IP and are not remotely addressable. This means there is no Bluetooth connectivity.