Columbus Police locked out four agencies that have current agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from its Flock network of license-plate readers after The Dispatch raised questions about the city’s sharing agreement.
As of July 15, the city was still sharing data with three agencies with 287(g) agreements made with ICE within the past month, as well as one with Spartanburg County in South Carolina that had an agreement with ICE dating back to April 2025.
It stopped sharing with those agencies after The Dispatch discovered through publicly available records that they had agreements with ICE. Columbus has banned the use of city resources for civil immigration enforcement since 2017.
According to a timeline shared with local media, police leadership first asked Flock on April 8 to enable an opt-out for agencies that have active 287(g) agreements to cooperate with ICE on national and statewide networks. A Flock spokesperson told The Dispatch on July 17 that the company doesn’t track such agreements.
On June 3, Columbus police, at the direction of Chief Elaine Bryant, disabled the national search function of Flock and removed one-to-one sharing with agencies that have 287(g) agreements. However, police missed one agency and three others entered into new agreements after that.
“The first three agencies were added to the 287(g) list in the last couple weeks. The fourth appears to be an error on our part. The list of 287(g) agencies changes frequently, so monitoring and revoking sharing is an ongoing, manual process,” police spokesperson Nicole Jaros said in an emailed statement.
A Flock spokesperson told The Dispatch that the company does not track which agencies continue to add new 287(g) agreements with ICE, so Columbus Police will need to determine if any new ICE partnerships emerge among over 400 law enforcement agencies around the country who continue to have access to the city’s expanding network of license plate cameras.
After the Columbus police released an audit on July 10 showing thousands of potential immigration-related searches of its network, Mayor Andrew Ginther said network sharing will not be resumed “until we have reviewed our policies and practices to further prevent its use for purposes that defy my Executive Order and our community values.”
“Our data will not be used for the possible purpose of immigration enforcement, by anyone,” Ginther said July 10.
As of July 15, Columbus still had access to the Flock data from two dozen organizations with confirmed ICE agreements.
“Agencies can choose to share network data with other agencies without receiving data in return. Some agencies have not revoked data sharing with us, even though we do not share data with them,” Jaros said.
Paris Lewbel, a spokesperson for Flock, said sharing data nationally can help law enforcement solve crimes and locate suspects – recently, for example, police in New Orleans used Flock cameras to find a suspect in Florida who made threats of a mass shooting at a jazz festival, but each agency owns its data.
Lewbel said that communities can also choose to opt out of any immigration or reproductive healthcare related searches, filters that the company implemented in July 2025 and Columbus adopted on Dec. 17, 2025.
“It’s totally up to each agency to determine if and how they share their data,” Lewbel said.
Where had Columbus been sharing Flock data?
Columbus had been sharing Flock data with three agencies after they recently made agreements to cooperate more with ICE – Geauga County and two sheriff’s departments in Tennessee.
The Geauga County Sheriff’s Office in northeast Ohio started a new 287(g) agreement with ICE for the “task force model” as of July 3, Chief Deputy Sheriff Tom Rowan confirmed to The Dispatch. Rowan said the sheriff signed the agreement and did not need approval from the board of county commissioners.
Geauga County had still been receiving Columbus data, but Rowan said the cooperation agreement with ICE has not been implemented – the county is waiting on ICE to share dates for required training.
Rowan said that the county has been housing ICE inmates for “decades” from an agreement with U.S. Marshals Service to house federal detainees, but the 287(g) agreement will now allow officers to detain people with a civil or criminal ICE warrant.
“We’ve encountered several individuals who have deportation orders and we were unable to do anything with them” if federal agents weren’t able to come and pick people up themselves, Rowan said. Now, deputies will be able to directly arrest people on behalf of federal agents.
He said deputies have not been using Flock cameras for immigration enforcement and that he doesn’t anticipate they will with the new partnership.
“I don’t think we’re actively out there looking for people,” Rowan said. He said he was unsure if ICE had requested permission to view their cameras.
Rowan said Flock can be useful for finding missing people and solving crimes – but he’s more concerned with the privacy implications of smart meters from power companies installed at homes.
“Is there someone out there abusing the system? Possibly, if someone abuses the system they’ll be dealt with, I don’t see the big hubbub (with Flock),” Rowan said.
Columbus had also been sharing data with Blount and Cheatham counties in Tennessee, which started new task force model 287(g) agreements with ICE in late June. A new state law in Tennessee passed this spring requires sheriff’s departments to cooperate with ICE or lose state funding.
Columbus Police still has direct sharing agreements for license plate data with eight police departments in Tennessee but does not appear to be sharing Flock data with any other sheriff’s departments in the Volunteer State.
Flock cameras have come under increased scrutiny in recent months. Columbus City Council has scheduled a hearing on Flock Aug. 10 after a police audit found 15,577 searches potentially related to immigration on the city’s data network.
Other cities in Ohio and around the country have opted to remove cameras from concerns about immigration enforcement and digital privacy, while others have continued to defend the technology and renew contracts with Flock.
Anna Lynn Winfrey covers regional/trending news for The Columbus Dispatch. She can be reached at awinfrey@dispatch.com.
Dispatch reporter Jordan Laird contributed reporting.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus cuts off Flock access for more agencies that work with ICE
Reporting by Anna Lynn Winfrey, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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By Anna Lynn Winfrey, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
