Flock now claims a perpetual right to use the data those cameras collect. Not for the length of the contract. Indefinitely. A town can cancel Flock next week, lose access to its own footage, and Flock keeps the right to use that data anyway.
Set aside how you feel about the cameras, that argument is already happening everywhere else, and it's not the part that should interest anyone who signs vendor contracts for a living. The lesson here is simpler: a customer's own data-retention policy is worth little if the vendor's terms say otherwise. The retention policy is real right up until it meets the terms of service â" and then the terms win.
The lesson here is simpler: a customer's own data-retention policy is worth little if the vendor's terms say otherwise. The retention policy is real right up until it meets the terms of service â" and then the terms win.
And the terms aren't the only thing that moves. This is the same Flock that, Wired reported this week, has been building tools to identify and track people by their movements â" the exact capability it spent years telling city councils it didn't do. So the promise drifts and the contract drifts, both in the vendor's direction, and the customer learns about it after the fact, if at all.
References the perpetual, worldwide license.
See: 4.1. Customer Data.
"Customer hereby grants to Flock a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to (a) use and disclose Customer Data to provide the Flock Services; and (b) use Customer Data to support and improve Flockâ(TM)s products and services."
Last Updated: August 21, 2026
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