Truth NWA

Your police department says it controls the data. This is what the paperwork says.

Springdale Master Services Agreement § 4.3

“Customer hereby grants Flock a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free right to use and distribute such Anonymized Data to improve and enhance the Services and for other development, diagnostic and corrective purposes, and other Flock offerings.”

§ 4.1 grants a limited, irrevocable, worldwide licence — limited to what is “necessary for Flock to provide the Flock Services to Customer.” The sentence above, § 4.3, carries no such limit. It is perpetual, and it runs to “other Flock offerings.”

The same section says “Flock does not own and shall not sell Anonymized Data.” Both sentences are in the agreement Springdale signed. What neither of them does is give the City a way back: a right granted perpetual is, by the plain meaning of the word, not a right the City can take back.

Springdale Data ownership
What was said
Springdale PD maintains absolute control over our local data.

Chief Derek Wright — "Dear Springdale Community," Springdale Police Department letterhead, Office of the Chief of Police. Emailed by the Chief to the Mayor as an attachment on July 31, 2026, and produced by the City under FOIA.

What the document says
Customer hereby grants Flock a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free right to use and distribute such Anonymized Data to improve and enhance the Services and for other development, diagnostic and corrective purposes, and other Flock offerings.

Master Services Agreement § 4.3 — City of Springdale, July 22, 2025 council packet. § 4.1 grants a limited, irrevocable, worldwide licence — limited to providing the Services. § 4.3, above, carries no such limit.

Where they meet, and where they don't

A right the City granted perpetual and irrevocable is, by the plain meaning of those two words, not a right the City can take back. The vendor's own use of anonymized and derived data is not a partner agency, is not bound by department standards, and is not revocable by the department.

The written question

Identify the provision under which the City may revoke, limit, or audit Flock's own use of data derived from Springdale — or confirm in writing that none exists.

A police department can control what its own officers do. That is real, and this site says so. What a department cannot do is take back a licence its city already granted in writing, forever.

See all 18 comparisons Read the documents yourself
Where the data lives

The originals are deleted at thirty days. Five things are not.

  1. Retention of originals

    “Retention Period” means the time period that the Customer Data is stored within the cloud storage, as specified in the applicable Order Form. Flock deletes all Footage on a rolling thirty (30) day basis, except as otherwise stated on the Order Form.

    Springdale Master Services Agreement § 1.15

  2. Where the data is held

    Flock may use the services of one or more third parties to deliver any part of the Flock Services, (such as using a third party to host the Web Interface for cloud storage or a cell phone provider for wireless cellular coverage).

    Springdale Master Services Agreement § 2.1

  3. Third-party recipients

    Customer hereby grants to Flock a non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free, perpetual license to access, share, view, record, duplicate, store, save, reproduce, modify, display, and distribute Customer Data and/or Integration Data, as required by the requested distribution. Customer acknowledges that such data may be viewed, recorded, duplicated, stored, saved, reproduced, modified, displayed, distributed, and retained by Recipient for a period longer than Flock's standard retention period and hereby provides consent to such retention period.

    Springdale Master Services Agreement § 4.4

  4. Machine-learning training

    Flock shall have the right to collect, analyze, and anonymize Customer Data and Customer Generated Data to the extent such anonymization renders the data non-identifiable to create Anonymized Data to use and perform the Services and related systems and technologies, including the training of machine learning algorithms.

    Springdale Master Services Agreement § 4.3

  5. Vendor disclosure

    Subject to and during the Retention Period, Flock may access, use, preserve and/or disclose the Footage to law enforcement authorities, government officials, and/or third parties, if legally required to do so or if Flock has a good faith belief that such access, use, preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to comply with a legal process, enforce this Agreement, or detect, prevent or otherwise address security, privacy, fraud or technical issues, or emergency situations.

    Springdale Master Services Agreement § 5.3

Where the data lives →
The sales meeting

“A hundred percent.”

A council member asked what share of passing cars the cameras read. That was the answer, on the record, eight days before the vote.

10 quotes from that meeting →
Flock's own words

“…to train the system”

The vendor's own public plain-English guide describes what it does with customer data — and its footer says the signed agreement controls in any conflict.

Both texts, side by side →
Misuse

109 documented cases

Officers charged with stalking. Wrongful arrests. Cameras livestreaming to the open internet. Federal lookups cities did not know about. Every entry dated and sourced.

Read the record →
Does it work?

The federal government's own evidence rating for this technology is “Ineffective.”

Two randomized controlled trials tested license plate readers against a control group. Neither found a reduction in crime. The best peer-reviewed review found the technology did not contribute in any meaningful way in roughly three of every four cases where it was used.

See the evidence, including what cuts the other way →
Next meetings you can speak at
  • Springdale City Council — 2nd and 4th Tuesday, 6:00 p.m.
    City Council Chamber, 2nd floor, 201 Spring Street, Springdale
    No printed time limit.
  • Bentonville City Council — 2nd and 4th Tuesday, 6:00 p.m.
    Council Chambers, City Hall, 305 SW A Street, Bentonville
    Sign-up required. 3 minutes
  • Siloam Springs Board of Directors — 1st and 3rd Tuesday, 6:30 p.m.
    City Administration Building, 400 N. Broadway, Siloam Springs
    No written public-comment rule published.
All 18 NWA governing bodies →
Latest in Arkansas
  • Six Arkansas cities ended or let Flock contracts expire; a seventh suspended — Arkansas Advocate, August 19, 2026
  • Centerton City Council voted to remove its Flock cameras — NWA Democrat-Gazette; NWA Homepage (KNWA/KFTA), August 11, 2026
  • Searcy City Council voted unanimously to end its Flock contracts — Deltaplex News; KARK, August 13, 2026

3 of the Northwest Arkansas governing bodies listed on this site have already ended their contracts.