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The city of Columbia Heights will stop using a set of 12 cameras that read license plates, after residents raised privacy concerns. 

The Columbia Heights City Council voted unanimously Monday night to cancel a contract with Flock Safety, the company behind the cameras. The vote came after a town hall meeting in May, where residents expressed strong opposition to the cameras. 

Those residents said they were worried about federal immigration agents accessing the data. 

Police said the cameras, which were installed in the city in 2024, were useful in solving crimes and missing-person cases. But Mayor Amáda Márquez Simula told MPR News that the system didn’t provide enough of a record of who was using the data it collected.

“Even though it’s a really great tool that’s been so valuable, we just really need to pause it for our community and see if other companies or if Flock can improve their security even more,” she said. 

The city in recent months had taken steps to restrict who can access the data collected by Flock cameras — restricting out-of-state data sharing in January, and then statewide data sharing in February.

“Our police department and our IT department really has locked down that information as much as possible,” Márquez Simula said. “Yet there’s still too many unknowns.”

Columbia Heights saw heavy federal immigration enforcement over the winter, and Simula said she wants to be sure the city’s data isn’t leading to people being targeted.

The mayor noted that Columbia Heights is not alone in canceling its Flock contract, and that other cities around the country have done the same. And she reiterated that the cameras did provide a valuable service for public safety in the community.

“We still do need a tool like this,” she said, adding that she believes new technology and new options will come forward that will “reflect what the community needs and how we can prevent a federal overreach like we saw this past winter.”

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The Columbia Heights City Council voted unanimously Monday night to cancel a contract with Flock Safety, the company behind the cameras that read license plates.

The Columbia Heights City Council voted unanimously Monday night to cancel a contract with Flock Safety, the company behind the cameras that read license plates. MPR's Morning Edition spoke with Mayor Amáda Márquez Simula.

Columbia Heights City Council votes to end Flock Safety camera contract

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