NORTH TONAWANDA — City lawmakers have temporarily pulled support for the county’s Flock camera program, becoming the first reported Western New York municipality to do so.
The city’s Common Council passed a resolution rescinding its previous approval of an April 2025 resolution that would allow the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office to set up Flock cameras in the city. This comes amidst growing controversy nationwide surrounding these cameras, with reports of some police officers abusing them.
The Common Council voted Tuesday to rescind its April 2025 resolution allowing the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office to install Flock cameras in the city.
“We have no issues that we’re aware of in North Tonawanda, but we certainly want to hit the brakes,” said Mayor Austin Tylec during Tuesday’s council meeting.
This action also gives the county sheriff and the state Department of Transportation 30 days to remove any cameras in the city, require new resolutions before any city property, rights-of-way, or resources are used for Flock equipment, and require them to disclose any data practices, access and sharing rules, and security protections, among others, before approval. The council is still open to having future discussions about these cameras in the city.
Tylec noted that unlike other contracts the city has, this agreement goes through another public entity with a third-party agreement.
“Under the current county Flock arrangement, many of the decisions regarding access, data retention, information sharing, auditing, and overall system administration are made outside of city government,” Tylec’s letter to the common council about this resolution reads. “While the equipment operates within North Tonawanda, the city has limited ability to establish its own requirements, independently review compliance, or directly address resident concerns. That lack of local oversight is one of the reasons I believe the prior authorization deserves further review.”
The Niagara County Sheriff’s Office announced in July 2023 it would work with Flock to bring their license-plate reading cameras to the county, saying it helps law enforcement trace stolen vehicles, track criminal suspects, and enhance recovery efforts for Amber and Silver alerts among other uses. Funded with a Department of Homeland Security Grant, these cameras work by taking photos of vehicles passing by, use AI to generate a profile of data related to the vehicle for police use, and store that data for, at the time, up to 30 days before deletion.
The Niagara County Legislature approved contracts with Flock in January 2024 to set up 67 cameras across the county, though one contract for 57 cameras has been terminated and replaced with one for 25 cameras. The other 10-camera contract is still in place. Rumors have spread on social media saying more such cameras would come to the city, but Tylec has said there are no such plans.
According to the website Deflock, which tracks where these cameras are installed, those 67 cameras have been set up around Niagara County, with the densest groupings in downtown Niagara Falls and Lockport. Cameras have also been set up in Lewiston, Porter, Cambria, Pendleton, Olcott, Newfane, Wilson, Hartland, and Barker.
Only one Flock camera has been set up within North Tonawanda, along Niagara Falls Boulevard at the intersection with Ohio Street. Tylec said that when this was first brought to the city, they thought there would be up to five installed, but only one was ever implemented.
There has been a growing backlash to these cameras over privacy concerns, abuses of the system by law enforcement officials, and causing false arrests, with reports of destroyed cameras happening nationwide. The American Civil Liberties Union has repeatedly called this system a “mass surveillance tool” and has been working with communities to cancel Flock contracts.
Flock recently implemented changes to their products, including law enforcement customers needing to implement an audit tool for flagging abnormal search behavior and shortening the standard data retention window from 30 days to seven. Critics of the company have called these changes retreads of previous safety measures.
Of the aldermen on the common council when this measure was approved in April 2025, only Joseph Lavey is still present. Council President Gabrielle Richards said that she does not begrudge the former council for its decision, but felt this was appropriate given the controversy surrounding Flock.
Lavey explained that when these cameras were first presented, they would be used for solving crimes like stolen vehicles and missing persons. His discussions with the North Tonawanda police and Niagara County Sheriff’s Office show they were being used for that purpose, but he has read stories about other departments abusing the system to spy on people.
“I definitely agree with making sure we have the right failsafe in place to make sure that none of that other stuff that has happened throughout the country happens here,” Lavey said.
As of August 2026, Deflock has listed 132,713 license-plate reader cameras installed nationwide. It also lists 100 municipalities that cancelled contracts or deactivated their cameras, including Syracuse, Saranac Lake, Scarsdale and Tompkins County in New York state.