Community Organizations and Denver Surveillance Task Force Members Ask Denver City Councilors to Vote No on Axon ALPR Contract

DENVER — In a letter sent to Denver City Councilors on Monday morning, March 23, a large coalition of community, advocacy, and civil rights organizations, and Denver Surveillance Task Force members asked council members to vote no on a new contract for automatic license plate reader (ALPR) technology to prevent the city from rushing into a new contract. The city council is scheduled to take a vote on the proposed Axon contract tonight.

Denver Mayor Mike Johnston abruptly announced the switch to Axon in February, just a week after publicly announcing the city had issued a request for proposals (RFP) to replace Flock Safety, the corporation that had been operating ALPRs in Denver. The change came after significant public pressure from Denverites and privacy, immigrant, and constitutional rights groups. The Flock mass surveillance system posed serious threats to the privacy and safety of Coloradans and people across the country. Flock’s undisclosed partnership with U.S. Border Patrol was exposed through analysis of the company’s audit logs. The logs show Denver’s data was searched more than 1,400 times from June 2024 to April 2025 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or by law enforcement on behalf of ICE.

In October 2025, the Mayor’s office attempted to push for a renewal, but Denver’s city auditor declined to sign the city’s Flock contract. The auditor cited concerns that Flock’s terms on sharing and accessing personally identifiable information opened the city to legal liability.

Mayor Johnston’s plan to switch to another corporate vendor does little to protect the civil rights of people living and visiting Denver. Flock’s contract ends on March 31, 2026. While Axon’s $150,000 proposed contract for a 50-camera system is about half of Flock’s current 111-camera system, the technology poses the same risks because there are not proper guardrails in place to protect their privacy and personally identifiable information.

“The city cannot simply move from one dragnet surveillance company to another and trust that these for-profit companies will put people’s civil liberties first,” said Anaya Robinson, ACLU of Colorado public policy director. “The city must implement critical protections around data retention, information sharing, access limitations, and meaningful community input and legislative approval policies to prevent abuses from government agencies and law enforcement. Continuing to operate this risky, unregulated surveillance technology in the city carries far greater risks than pausing the ALPR program.”

The proposed Axon contract has been brought forward without involvement from Denver’s Surveillance Task Force, formed by the city to provide formal input. The timing severely limited meaningful and robust input from the community.

“Mayor Mike Johnston must not repeat past mistakes. He cannot continue to ignore the concerns of the people of Denver by shutting them out when making decisions that will directly impact their privacy and safety,” said Denver’s Surveillance Task Force members. “Mayor Johnston must commit to community oversight and he must work with his own Surveillance Task Force to create regulatory guidelines before continuing this use of this surveillance technology.”

Denver city councilors must vote no on the proposed Axon contract, express support for review by the city’s Surveillance Task Force, and ask the Mayor to allow for proper time for the Task Force to draft and propose regulations for the council’s review. We cannot allow rapidly growing technology to outpace necessary regulations to protect the civil liberties of everyone in the city of Denver.