Coalition of Civil Rights and Advocacy Organizations Deeply Opposed to Use of Flock Cameras for ICE Surveillance

DENVER — Our coalition’s worst fears are now confirmed after the Denver Police Department (DPD) released Flock audit logs that prove Denver data was searched more than 1,400 times for ICE since June 2024. This is more evidence conveying the serious threat the Flock mass surveillance system poses to the privacy and safety of not only immigrants in Denver, but across Colorado and the country.

Flock technology is a national network of automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras that take pictures of all passing cars and stores that information, including license plates and personal location data, in a database accessible to law enforcement agencies of all kinds.

The Flock camera audit logs were obtained through a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request. While heavily redacted and incomplete, they still provide explicit proof that the surveillance camera system was accessed many times for ICE over the last year, and Denver Mayor Mike Johnston’s office and Denver Police knew this was happening, despite repeated messaging from the Johnston administration that no data was shared with ICE.

Since early April 2025, when DPD brought the Flock Group Inc. contract extension before council, Denver City Council members repeatedly asked to see the Flock audit logs. The search audit logs, retained indefinitely, are the primary tool for transparency. Both Flock and DPD officials continuously pointed to audit logs as a technology safeguard to ensure the system is not misused. DPD and the mayor’s office delayed the release of these audit logs for more than three months, as CORA requests from both media networks and the public stacked up. City council members were finally sent the redacted audit logs on July 23, 2025. The first search accessing Denver’s Flock cameras for ICE was done on June 13, 2024.

DPD shared data from the Flock network until mid-April of 2025, when council and community concerns pushed them to change that access. DPD currently shares its data with all law enforcement agencies in Colorado, including those actively doing searches on behalf of ICE.

For example, the Loveland Police Department admitted to sharing their Flock search portal with a federal agent conducting searches on behalf of ICE in April this year. The audit logs indicate more than two dozen searches were done by the Loveland Police Department for ICE. The logs also indicate the Windsor Police Department conducted searches with the cited reason for the search being “ICE.” The remaining searches related to immigration enforcement were conducted by out-of-state agencies from across the nation, including Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona, Kansas, Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, and more. These audit logs add to alarming evidence that demonstrates a pattern of local and federal agents accessing these databases without probable cause to locate immigrants, separate them from their loved ones, and effectively disappear them.

This newly public information comes after Denver Mayor Johnston unilaterally extended the previously expired contract with Flock Inc. on July 7, 2025 for $498,500, skirting just under the council threshold for contract approval after council unanimously voted down the contract extension on May 5, 2025. The contract extension runs through October 2025. Mayor Johnston, however, had access to the audit logs when he made his decision.

Our coalition recently learned that the Denver Police Department, in collaboration with Flock Group Inc., submitted plans on July 8, 2025, to install four new Flock cameras around the city, despite broad public opposition. Mayor Johnston cannot say he stands with immigrants while ignoring the reality that Flock technology in Denver has already been accessed for ICE. His administration barreled forward undemocratically to extend the Flock contract, increasing its reach across our communities.

Now, amidst Trump’s mass terror campaign on immigrants, Mayor Mike Johnston must turn these cameras off for good to help put an end to the Trump administration’s unlawful and abusive overreach in Colorado.

See the full statement below.