What could New Bedford's new Flock ordinance look like without Flock? The Standard-Times Nov. 6, 2026, 4:02 a.m. ET * The New Bedford Police Department will not renew its contract for Flock Safety license plate reader cameras. * The decision follows the firing of two officers accused of misusing the camera system's data for personal reasons. * Mayor Jon Mitchell has proposed a new ordinance to balance public safety benefits with personal privacy concerns. * City officials are considering a successor to the Flock system with greater restrictions and oversight. NEW BEDFORD - The New Bedford Police Department will not renew its contract with Flock Safety when it elapses on Nov. 12, but city officials are considering a possible successor to the automated license plate reader cameras. The cameras have been shut off since Aug. 11. The move comes after NBPD has fired two officers, accusing them of misusing Flock data for personal reasons, including one officer accused of tracking a former girlfriend. Mayor Jon Mitchell proposed an ordinance Nov. 4 that he said would place greater restrictions on the use of ALPR technology. What does Mitchell hope to achieve? According to a press release, the ordinance is an effort to balance the public safety benefits of ALPR technology with personal privacy concerns. "License plate readers are a powerful tool to promote public safety, but they must be used responsibly," Mitchell said in the release. "This ordinance would put clear limits on ALPR technology that are designed to prevent misuse, protect legitimate privacy concerns, and enable the police to keep our city safe." "Any policy governing the use of law enforcement technology must be grounded in both public trust and the goal of providing the very best public safety services available," said Chief Jason Thody in the release. "Our experience with ALPR technology has reinforced the importance of having clear expectations and ensuring those expectations are met. It has also shown how effective this technology can be, and its importance in modern law enforcement. I believe this ordinance is an important step toward establishing a consistent framework for the future, and I look forward to continuing to work with city leadership as it moves forward." The Mitchell ordinance would require all ALPR searches to be conducted by trained personnel and only for authorized public safety purposes. Issue still before the City Council. The City Council Ordinance Committee is scheduled to take up ALPR technology on Nov. 18 when it looks at a nine-page letter from Thody with recommendations for an ALPR ordinance. It also seeks to balance city council oversight with public safety efficiency, according to the council agenda. The issue is also still before the council's Public Safety and Neighborhoods Committee, which meets Nov. 16, to discuss "the city's use of law enforcement surveillance technologies, including but not limited to automated license plate reader (ALPR) systems, Flock Safety cameras, public safety camera networks, and any other technologies capable of collecting or retaining data on the movement of vehicles or individuals ..." Councilor Shane Burgo, who chairs the Ordinance Committee, said the council lacked details on Mitchell's proposed ordinance. The actual ordinance hadn't been provided to councilors as of Nov. 4, he said. Could latest ordinance be a move in right direction. He added in a statement released Nov. 4 that he looked forward to reviewing the ordinance's actual language in the Ordinance Committee and continuing the discussion. Mitchell's press release provided 11 bullet points on the proposed ordinance's details, and it seems in line with Thody's recommendations. Both would have elected officials deciding whether the city uses ALPR technology and establishing the rules surrounding it, while police would retain operational control within those limits. Council has oversight, police handle day-to-day operation. Both proposals would give the City Council oversight of major decisions while leaving day-to-day operation of the technology largely to police. Mitchell's ordinance would require a public hearing and council approval before the city enters into or renews an ALPR contract. Thody recommended council approval for acquiring the technology, renewing contracts and funding it, while arguing that police should retain authority over such operational decisions as camera placement and configuration. Mitchel's ordinance would limit retention of ALPR data to 30 days unless it is relevant to an ongoing criminal or internal investigation. Thody called for a short, fixed retention period, with exceptions when information must be preserved as evidence or for other lawful purposes. What are other similarities. Both call for restricting access to trained personnel, logging searches, auditing use of the system and imposing controls on vendors. Mitchell's proposal requires monthly audits and public reporting on aggregate findings, substantiated violations and corrective actions. Thody had recommended monthly internal audits along with an annual independent review and public reporting. The mayor's ordinance would also require officers to visually confirm a license plate, vehicle, alert status and relevant circumstances before taking enforcement action. Thody likewise recommended that an ALPR alert serve only as an investigative lead and not be the sole basis for police action. Thody recommended explicit emergency authority for temporary use of surveillance technology and argued against requiring disclosure of exact camera locations because doing so could allow people to evade or vandalize cameras. Mitchell's release didn't address those issues. Investigative audit of Flock use is ongoing. The audit is ongoing. Police are reviewing Flock searches between Dec. 20, 2024, the day Flock's technology was adopted by the NBPD, and Dec. 31, 2025. The results will be announced upon its completion, according to Mitchell's press release. Anti-Flock sentiment has run high in past council meetings with Council President Ryan Pereira having to suspend the Aug. 20 meeting due to heckling and disruptions from some audience members.

Flock drone chief Sidhu quits for a16z, Alpha still in Early Access. DroneXL may earn a commission when you buy through links on its site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Flock Safety's Alpha, the drone Rahul Sidhu's aviation unit built and Flock promised to early-access customers by the end of 2025. Photo credit: Flock Safety Rahul Sidhu, the former police officer who sold his drone startup Aerodome to Flock Safety for more than $300 million in October 2024, is leaving Flock to join Andreessen Horowitz's American Dynamism team as an entrepreneur-in-residence. Sidhu announced the move on LinkedIn on Monday, November 2, writing that two years after the sale he is leaving the drone business "in good hands," and that a long-awaited honeymoon comes first. Flock named Sidhu VP of Aviation when it bought Aerodome, and by August 2026 he was its chief strategy officer. He was the face of the Drone as First Responder product that CEO Garrett Langley now calls Flock's fastest-growing business unit, the one Langley says will make up nearly half of the company's future revenue. He leaves within days of the exit of roughly 270 Flock employees, about 18% of the company, under a buyout program that closed at the end of October. And he leaves with Alpha, the American-built drone Flock promised to early-access customers before the end of 2025, still sold on Flock's website as an early-access product. Sidhu built Aerodome in 17 months and sold it to Flock for more than $300 million. Aerodome was 17 months old when Flock bought it in October 2024, and the price topped $300 million, according to TechCrunch's reporting at the time. The startup had raised $28 million. Andreessen Horowitz backed both companies, so the venture firm sat on both sides of the deal. Sidhu had called Aerodome an "American Dynamism speed-run," a nod to the a16z practice he now joins. DroneXL covered Aerodome in May 2024, when the company's website showed its drone-in-a-box setup built around a rebranded DJI Matrice 350. Sidhu acknowledged then that DJI still excelled at things like reading a license plate from 400 feet (122 meters). Flock's acquisition announcement committed the company to "a suite of American-made, National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA)-compliant drones, set to be released over the next 12 months." Flock cut the ribbon on a 97,000-square-foot drone plant in Smyrna, Georgia, in April 2025. By September 2025 Sidhu was launching Aerodome DAS, the private-security version of the product. In May he was on a16z's podcast with David Ulevitch, the general partner who runs its American Dynamism practice, explaining Flock's sensor network. In August, Mother Jones was quoting him as chief strategy officer, defending Flock's auditing after reports that officers had used its cameras to stalk people. The firm he joins also holds Skydio and Anduril, and DroneXL reported in June how Marc Andreessen's seat on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board sits next to those holdings. Sidhu leaves days after 270 colleagues took Flock's buyout. Flock opened a voluntary separation program for its roughly 1,500 employees on September 18, WIRED reported, with decisions due October 9 and most leavers gone by October 29. Reuters reported on October 8 that about 270 people, 18% of the company, would go. Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel told TechCrunch it was "a voluntary program, not a layoff." The advocacy group Secure Justice counts 214 cities and counties that have dropped Flock contracts since 2021, 90 of them in 2026, per Futurism, and Flock says renewals outpace cancellations. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found 38% of Americans support Flock cameras in their community and 47% oppose them. The drone side is the part Flock points to when it talks about growth, with about 175 DFR customers in October. That unit's founder is now at the venture firm that owns a piece of Flock, Skydio and Anduril. Flock's About page and product pages, as of November 4, name nobody as his successor on the aviation side. Alpha, the drone Sidhu's unit built, is still an early-access product a year after launch. Flock unveiled Alpha in Denver on October 16, 2025, and its announcement said the drone "will be delivered to Early Access customers before the end of the year." As of November 4, Flock's DFR page still gates Alpha behind a "Get Early Access" button. Flock's "Alpha in Action" post, the one it links from that page, says the drone is "available now through early access for agencies nationwide." The specs on Flock's pages today match the Denver announcement: 60 mph (97 km/h), a camera Flock says reads a plate from 2,000 feet (610 meters), a 90-second turnaround in a dock that both swaps and contact-charges batteries, and four cellular modems. Flock says it designs and assembles the aircraft in Atlanta. DroneXL questioned the 2,000-foot figure in June, when Flock's own Aerodome pages still said 1,000 feet. The Alpha in its dock, which both swaps and contact-charges batteries. Image credit: Flock Safety The public record on Alpha in the field is thin. Oakland County, Michigan's seven-drone program, approved in April, was described as running on Alpha. Warwick, Rhode Island bought one for $150,000 in March and, as of October, still lacked the airport airspace approval to fly it. Edison, New Jersey voted in September to buy one. Lewiston, New York, got one Flock drone on loan in February, and the report does not say which model. In March, the Fulton County jail deployment in Atlanta, billed as the country's first jail anti-contraband DFR program, ran on a DJI Matrice 4TD and a DJI Dock 3, not on Alpha. Flock's DFR product page today names only Alpha and its own docks, and DJI appears nowhere on it. I searched Flock's blog and product pages on November 4 and found no Alpha delivery count. Sidhu's LinkedIn post thanks Langley, the Flock team and the Aerodome team and names nobody who takes over. Flock's newest post that mentions Alpha, a November 4 IACP recap, has the drone "on display" at the booth. DroneXL's take. The money was made in October 2024. Everything since has been Flock's problem, and now it is Flock's problem without the man who sold it the plan. An entrepreneur-in-residence seat at the investor that funded both sides of a $300 million deal is about the softest landing in this industry, and I don't blame Sidhu for taking it. He built a company in 17 months and sold it for more than ten times what it had raised. His stated reasons are a16z and a honeymoon, and I take him at his word. I still think the timing says more about Flock than about him. I doubt a founder walks away from a drone business Langley says will be nearly half of Flock's revenue if the aircraft it is betting on were already sitting in 175 docks. Yes, an 18% cut can be housekeeping after a growth binge, and Flock says renewals outpace cancellations. But Alpha was promised to early-access customers before the end of 2025, the Fulton County jail deployment DroneXL documented in March flew DJI hardware, and the FCC's December Covered List order shut the door on new DJI authorizations, so the American drone is the whole bet. If you run a DFR program on a Flock contract, get the Alpha delivery date in writing and ask who signs it now that Sidhu doesn't. Flock has about 175 DFR customers and no public Alpha delivery count, and as of November 4 it has not named who answers for that. Sources: TechCrunch (October 2024 and October 2026), Flock Safety announcements and product pages, Mother Jones, a16z, Police Magazine, Government Technology, WIRED, Reuters, Futurism, Rahul Sidhu's LinkedIn post, Cosign talent newsletter DroneXL uses automated tools to support research and source retrieval. All reporting and editorial perspectives are by Haye Kesteloo. Read its editorial standards. Editor-in-Chief Haye Kesteloo is the Editor in Chief and Founder of DroneXL.co, where he covers all drone-related news, DJI rumors and writes drone reviews, and of EVXL.co, for all electric vehicle news. Haye can be reached at haye @ dronexl.co or @hayekesteloo. Also on LinkedIn, Muck Rack, Instagram and YouTube. DroneXL reports under its editorial standards. Spotted an error? Read the corrections policy. How DroneXL uses automated tools.