The Boulder Police Department uses its fleet of Flock cameras to illegally surveil people without any probable cause, a class-action lawsuit filed Thursday morning alleges.
Boulder has deployed and uses 31 Flock cameras to scan people’s cars while they are doing everyday tasks such as taking their children to school, according to the lawsuit filed by William Freeman and Gwen Steel, both of whom regularly work in, frequent or drive through Boulder. The department’s camera usage constitutes a warrantless system of mass surveillance, violating the Colorado Constitution’s provision against warrantless searches and seizures, the suit alleges.
In the suit, filed in Boulder County District Court, the complainants allege Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn has deployed the Flock cameras without any safeguards protecting people’s privacy.
“No court has found probable cause to believe that criminal activity is afoot on Boulder’s public roads twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week,” the suit states. “Defendant Redfearn’s deployment of the Flock technology constitutes a dragnet search of the movements of every person who drives in Boulder.”
The suit also named Dawn VanAckeren, a records specialist with Boulder police, because she denied Freeman’s records request asking for all Flock records of his own vehicle, the suit alleges. That denial violated the Colorado Criminal Justice Records Act, the suit states.
Boulder police have used their Flock license plate-reading cameras continuously since Jan. 6, 2022, according to the suit. There are at least nine other Flock cameras in Boulder, run either by the University of Colorado Boulder Police Department or private businesses, but Boulder police still use them to surveil anyone driving in Boulder, the suit alleges.
“With thirty-one cameras strategically positioned throughout the city, BPD has constructed a surveillance dragnet that makes it difficult for any resident or visitor to travel within Boulder without being tracked,” the suit states.
The suit notes that until June 2025, Boulder allowed law enforcement agencies outside of Colorado to see its Flock data, including some agencies known to collaborate with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, the suit states.
Anyone who drives in, rides in or travels on public roads in Boulder but was tracked by Flock cameras without a warrant is entitled to relief, the class action suit states. The suit says that the number of people who could seek relief is in the tens of thousands.
Freeman and Steel, represented by Andy McNulty of the Newman-McNulty law firm, are asking for undetermined monetary damages as relief from what they call a series of unreasonable searches and seizures, the lawsuit states. The pair also asks that Colorado courts order Boulder to stop using Flock cameras without a warrant, according to the suit.
Boulder and its police department are evaluating the claims made in the lawsuit, according to city spokesperson Sarah Huntley. Future arguments and perspectives about the case will be made through court filings, Huntley added in her statement.
The city of Boulder has had a request for proposals out for license plate-reading technology since March, according to a city news release. The proposal period came after some City Council members expressed concerns about the city’s relationship with Flock ahead of a then-expected contract renewal with the company.
Boulder Police Chief Stephen Redfearn speaks during a town hall on Jan. 28. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)
Redfearn, Boulder’s police chief, said in a town hall in January that Flock camera data is not shared with ICE, and that it has helped police find suspects and, in some cases, victims of kidnappings.
“The risk of misuse is far outweighed by the public safety benefits it provides for us,” Redfearn said at the town hall meeting.
Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel said customer agencies, such as Boulder police, own and control their own data, and that the company takes privacy and data security seriously.
“The complaint against officials with the City of Boulder raises questions about automated license plate readers that courts across the country have considered – and rejected – dozens of times now. Fixed LPR technology has consistently been upheld as constitutional,” Lewbel said in an emailed statement.
