Columbus police say U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement never accessed data from the city’s Flock license-plate camera system, but an arm of the federal agency had a pilot program to directly access the system for two months in 2025.
In an audit of the city’s Flock system released July 10, the Columbus Division of Police included charts that show zero inquiries by ICE since its inception in late 2024. But audit logs released at the same time show that Homeland Security Investigations − an arm of ICE − made nearly 200 searches that could have included information from Columbus.
Those searches mostly included hundreds, if not thousands, of other camera networks around the country as well. U.S. Customs and Border Protection also made over 3,500 searches on the network.
Law enforcement agencies with cooperation agreements with ICE also could have had access to Columbus data before department leadership asked Flock to enable an “opt out” function with cooperating agencies in early April and Columbus police turned off national search access June 12.
Columbus police Deputy Chief Tim Myers said that there is no clear indication that ICE and CBP were directly using the data in central Ohio.
“The challenge with the national network lookup is that it is fully reciprocal. We believe the reason those records show up in our audit logs is because we were opted into the national network, and so were they during that pilot program,” Myers said.
He added that to his knowledge, the city did not receive a direct data sharing request from HSI or CBP.
Columbus Mayor Andrew Ginther has banned the use of city resources for immigration enforcement since an executive order in February 2017. City Council adopted a local law that codifies the order.
What is Homeland Security Investigations?
According to the agency website, HSI investigates transnational crimes such as terrorism and child exploitation but can also be involved with immigration enforcement.
ICE data published by the Deportation Data Project shows that HSI was involved with arresting at least seven people in central Ohio in 2025. Just two of those people had been convicted of a crime, three had pending charges and two had civil immigration infractions.
Flock’s CEO and Founder Garrett Langley wrote in an August 2025 blog post that the “limited pilots” were to “assist those agencies in combatting human trafficking and fentanyl distribution,” but admitted that the company didn’t fully inform local jurisdictions about data use.
“We clearly communicated poorly. We also didn’t create distinct permissions and protocols in the Flock system to ensure local compliance for federal agency users,” Langley said, adding that the company was building more compliance tools.
How have police responded to increased Flock scrutiny?
Police say they have also applied additional filters and limited nationwide network sharing to limit potential misuse for immigration enforcement. Leadership have been defending the use of Flock to help solve crimes and locate missing people as scrutiny has been rising in recent months.
Data from Columbus was being shared with thousands of law enforcement agencies around the country until early June, then Ginther paused statewide sharing with most agencies after an audit found 15,577 potential immigration-related searches on the city’s network of cameras.
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: Did ICE access Columbus Flock data? CPD says no, but data say otherwise
Reporting by Anna Lynn Winfrey, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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By Anna Lynn Winfrey, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
