Elgin Community College President Says Flock Refused to Remove Campus Cameras and Workers Stripped Coverings Off Them

Since April 2025, when Elgin Community College had six Flock Safety cameras installed on its campus west of Chicago, the school has gone from customer to combatant. The fight ended only when the contract expired in April 2026, and it is drawing fresh attention this week.

The college hired Flock to "enhance the safety and security of students," according to the reporting. By September 2025, administrators had grown worried. Their stated concerns: that Flock was sharing data with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, that camera feeds were not properly secured, and that both law enforcement and company employees were abusing access to the data.

A request that went nowhere

In October 2025, Elgin staff formally told Flock they wanted to cancel and have the equipment removed. President Peggy Heinrich says Flock rejected the request within a day, saying it had not violated the contract.

In December, the college reached out again and offered to pay for the remaining five months of the contract if Flock would just take the cameras down. Flock never responded.

Flock retains ownership of its equipment even while it sits on a client's property. That detail turned a contract dispute into a standoff over who controls hardware installed on a college's grounds.

Trash bags and zip ties

With no answer, Elgin staff covered the cameras with black trash bags and zip ties so they could not capture footage. Workers in an unmarked vehicle then repeatedly removed the coverings.

"We were kind of in a back and forth for a bit where we'd cover, and then when they'd come to service, they'd remove," Heinrich said. "Then we'd cover and then they'd remove."

Heinrich assumed the vehicle belonged to Flock. The company did not respond to WBEZ's request for comment on the broader dispute.

The back-and-forth continued until April 2026, when the contract expired and Flock uninstalled the cameras.

The immigration backdrop

The dispute played out on a campus where more than half of students identify as Latino, according to WBEZ, and where enrollment had dipped. Heinrich said the school wanted students focused on learning and was doing everything possible to make campus feel safe.

On September 18, 2025, federal immigration authorities took a student into custody in a campus parking lot, NBC Chicago reported. The college said then that it does not engage in immigration enforcement and does not voluntarily share information about students' immigration status.

The facts cut in more than one direction. Elgin officials later said an audit found no evidence that federal immigration agents had accessed the college's own Flock data.

The broader Illinois picture is less comfortable for Flock. The Illinois Secretary of State's office said in filings from June 2025 and August 2025 that U.S. Customs and Border Protection had searched Illinois Flock data in violation of state law. Those filings announced a crackdown and an audit of license-plate-reader data use. Federal immigration authorities also directly accessed Flock data at some Illinois public colleges.

Flock's position

Flock's stated position is narrow: it said it had not breached its agreement with Elgin. The company describes its cameras as a tool intended to help locate stolen cars and missing people. The cameras pair automatic license plate readers with artificial intelligence that tracks vehicle registration, models, dents and bumper stickers.

The contract's terms have not been published, so the public cannot see what early-termination rights, if any, the college had.

What remains disputed is the conduct around it. Heinrich's account is that a vendor rejected a paying customer's request to remove the cameras, then undid that customer's attempt to cover the lenses.

What comes next

The college is not the only institution under pressure. In a WBEZ segment aired October 8, 2026, some Illinois students called on their colleges to cancel Flock contracts, because federal agents and other law enforcement have accessed the data the cameras capture for immigration enforcement.

The open question is who controls the hardware once a customer tries to terminate service. Flock has not publicly addressed how it would handle similar requests from other institutions.