Orlando DSA

Surveillance-for-Profit is “Flock”ing to Orlando

Flock Safety’s cameras are infesting Orlando, sitting at 614 cameras and growing. Here’s what they collect, how they’ve been abused, how unsecure they are, and what our community can do about it.

Written by: Collin L.
Edited by: Penowl, Ishmael

Figure 1. Photograph taken in Aurora, Colorado on June 27, 2024, of a Flock Safety camera outside a retail store. Tony Webster, 2024, color photograph, Wisconsin Public Radio, CC BY 2.0, https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-police-forces-use-cameras-track-vehicles-communities-worry-overreach.

Automated License Plate Readers, or ALPRs, have become a ubiquitous aspect of daily life over the past decade. Flock Safety saw this surveillance market and developed a new type of beast; reading your license plate is the least of their what they can do.

Flock Safety popped onto the radar in 2022, when a huge injection of cash from a few shady billionaires (Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, to name a few) pushed its valuation to $7.5 billion.1 2 The company began offering contracts to lease its camera systems to local police departments, often putting up hundreds of cameras at a time without obtaining any permits or clearance from the city whatsoever. One of those cases was right next door in Lake County, where cameras were installed on public roadways without informing the county board (let alone hold a hearing to receive comments from the public).3  

This pattern of behavior conceals a much larger host of concerns, some of which include: the sheer quantity of data collected by Flock’s over 113,000 cameras, the publication of said data onto a national database for public subscribers, the abusive and illegal ways law enforcement is already using this system for, and the poor data security measures left in place which render such sensitive information vulnerable to exploitation by other bad actors.4 First, however, we must start by explaining the technology itself.

Not your average ALPR

An Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) is a stationary camera with built-in software that detects and records license plates from passing cars with a timestamp and location, which is then fed into a searchable database. The original intended use was narrow: to flag stolen vehicles or wanted plates in real time, and for law enforcement only. Even then, only certain officers with a CJIS certification were allowed to view the data. The data captured was very limited, highly regulated, and frequently audited, and the devices were installed only on very specific routes that had to be approved by the Department of Transportation. This previous generation of ALPRs was still morally and constitutionally problematic, but there were more checks and balances in place with limited capabilities and access. Flock builds upon this idea, rips out the safeguards, and operates entirely differently.

What does Flock collect?

Flock can capture far more than simply license plates and timestamps with its Vehicle Signature and Flock FreeForm™ technology.5 It can grab a vehicle’s make, model, and color, and it logs bumper stickers, dents, scratches, and features like a roof rack or spare tire. In the absence of a plate, this means that a user only needs to search with basic descriptors like “yellow SUV with a roof rack” or “truck with dirtbike on trailer” and still get multiple hits, tracking wherever that vehicle has been for at least the past month without ever needing a full or partial plate number.6

Flock also captures, tracks, and identifies nearby sounds, pedestrians, bicyclists, and animals. According to patents filed by Flock, the system can even track biometric information from the street: the specific movement of limbs unique to each person’s walk, along with posture, age, clothing, gender, height, race, weight, and facial recognition, all in HD video that can be streamed live or requested as video clips.7 8 Now, newer AI features allow Flock to identify patterns of interest, like where a person spends most of their time and which cars they often travel with, or other algorithm-defined “suspicious activity.”9

This nationwide database isn’t just available to police and government entities: any business or homeowners association with a Flock subscription can look you up, too.

What the Flock are they?

In short, Flock has commercialized an ALPR on steroids: a nationwide, shared database with instant access and ‘suspicious activity’ algorithms that tracks everyone across multiple jurisdictions, counties, states, and regions. These cameras store billions of scans each month, and installing them carries no oversight, accountability, or approval from any authority/governing body.

And who foots the bill? Taxpayers do. Most of these contracts come out of police department budgets, which are taxpayer funded. Flock charges $3,000 per camera per year (a price point that continues to increase as part of their predatory business practices once adopted); for the roughly 113,000 cameras nationwide, that comes to $345,000,000 every year.10 The shared network is then available to anyone with a subscription, which could take the form of individuals, businesses, HOAs, law enforcement, federal agencies, schools, places of worship, and more.

Don’t let Flock fool you: it is not in the security business, it’s in the data business, and that shows in its practices. Flock sells access to its data through a subscription to its National Lookup tool, and roughly 75% of law enforcement agencies pay in to share what they collect and search everything else other department or private business has gathered.11 Flock also maintains what it calls a “hotlist” of people of interest flagged by the system, then uses AI to analyze patterns, report potential suspicious activity, and alert local law enforcement when a person crosses state lines.12 13 Apparently, pre-crime is now a legitimate avenue for investigating and pursuing citizens, and a corporation has fixed itself as judge, jury, and executioner. 

Even in situations where a police department or city government isn’t allowed to install these cameras, Flock’s business model offers a loophole: private companies install cameras instead, and police or federal agencies can still access the cameras through the shared national database. 14 The ACLU in particular has reported on the Flock Business Network, one of the company’s newer programs which is built specifically for private companies and government agencies working together to create watch lists, blacklists, and databases.15 These can be used in a variety of worrying situations, such as tracking people at protests, places of worship, or abortion clinics, alerting a business when a person of interest drives into their parking lot, and more. Recent journalism efforts by 404 Media revealed that Flock sales demos in Atlanta involved accessing cameras inside of children’s schools, playgrounds, pools, and youth gymnastics rooms.16 The council in this case still voted to renew their contract with Flock despite the many disturbing implications featured in this demo.

The Local Infestation

People have started paying close attention. Deflock.org maintains a crowdsourced national map built from reported sightings of Flock cameras by ordinary people. The numbers are staggering: 113,438 cameras used by over 6,424 law enforcement agencies, 1,000 businesses, and countless HOAs across 49 states.17 18 Most of this rollout has happened just in the past year and a half.

Figure 2. Screenshot taken at 8:32am on July 11, 2026 depicting 113,285 Flock cameras currently active in the continental United States. DeFlock Maps, Crowdsourced ALPR surveillance map, https://maps.deflock.org/?lat=39.8283&lng=-98.5795&zoom=4.00. 

Across the greater Orlando area, 614 cameras alone have been recorded, most of which have also appeared in the past year. Many Florida residents may recall the license plate law under HB253 that passed last fall in Florida: the new restrictions on license plate frames led to people being fined and arrested for borders deemed too decorative or obstructive.19 The passing of this law has been speculated to be heavily influenced by the state’s need for clear license plates so that their ALPR systems like Flock can function with greater ease.

In just one year, Florida agencies ramped up their immigration-related Flock searches by 82%, and the Florida Highway Patrol ran more than 1,200 of those searches specifically tied to ICE and immigration enforcement.20 21 22 In just the 50 days between March 13 and May 5 of this spring, Florida State Troopers searched Flock’s network no less than 250 times for immigration purposes.23

Florida agencies have also used Flock to search for protesters and drivers involved with No Kings protests as well as the May Day rally held in 2025.24 Nationwide, they have been used to search for 50501 and Hands Off protesters, pro-Palestinian demonstrators, animal rights activists, and even tracked a driver who flipped the bird at ICE agents while brake-checking their vehicle.25 That individual’s plate was searched under the term “assault on agent” and now faces federal court charges for “assaulting, resisting or impeding certain officers or employees.”26 It is also important to note that it is illegal for immigration agents to access ALPR data in Illinois.27

Figure 3. Screenshot taken at 8:32am on July 11, 2026 depicting 614 Flock cameras currently active in the Greater Orlando area. DeFlock Maps, Crowdsourced ALPR surveillance map, https://maps.deflock.org/timeline?lat=28.5691&lng=-81.3387&zoom=10.0. 

It is important to note, though, that Flock relies on a self-reporting honor system. Anyone who submits requests for a search on the database can fill out a field listing a ‘reason’. The stats listed above were from searches with listed reasons like ‘Kings Protest’, but the vast majority of them are just labeled under the broad umbrella of ’investigation’, ‘misc’, left blank, or in one case, a smiling emoji; therefore, these statistics are likely underreported.28 These inconsistencies are the intended effect; internal bulletins issued by the FBI, ICE, HSI, and the DEA actually encourage it. One bulletin issued to a Texas police intelligence center stated that “Flock Administrators should ensure that the reason for the query be as vague as permissible,” and offered specific suggestions such as simply putting down “investigation.”29 The bulletin goes on to say that this should be done to mask their activity on the Flock database against potential audits or citizen FOIA requests, which are the main mechanisms that support the many statistics referenced in this article and one of the few pathways of visibility that citizens have into how the Flock surveillance network is being used against them.

At the legislative level, the pattern of ALPRs and Flock’s infestation into Orange and Seminole counties is the same: these decisions are made as line items in commission or council agendas, buried under a public safety rationale and often softened by state funding.30 31 As of the publication of this article, there has not yet been any dedicated public hearing, referendum, or similar community-input process when it comes to greenlighting surveillance infrastructure.

A Clear Violation of Rights

The Fourth Amendment clearly protects against unreasonable searches and seizures and requires law enforcement to obtain warrants supported by probable cause and limited in scope.32 It was designed to eliminate indiscriminate searches and the threat of ‘general warrants’ that once permitted British officials to rummage through Americans’ homes and papers.

Today, Flock revives the same threat. No longer bound by probable cause, warrants, or reasonable suspicion, government officials can now collect and store intimate details of a person’s life for perusal at the click of a button. Without judicial oversight, tools like Flock instead put this discretionary power in the hands of police, an institution that is incentivized to conduct exactly the suspicionless searches the Framers sought to prohibit. The system passively surveils and creates a record of everyone, which opens the door for retroactive investigations; this allows law enforcement to dig up something from the past to pin on any person they consider an adversary to the State. 

The Fourth Amendment has already been held in many cases to protect against warrantless government surveillance. In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court held that using cell phone location data to track someone’s movements is a search requiring a warrant.33 In Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department, the Fourth Circuit held that persistent, warrantless drone surveillance is unconstitutional, finding that persistent surveillance of outdoor movements “invade[s] people’s reasonable expectation of privacy.”34 Additionally, a police chief is currently being sued in Virginia for Fourth Amendment violations over warrantless, continuous surveillance using Flock: the police chief put up 172 cameras in town with the purpose of making it “difficult to drive anywhere of any distance [in Norfolk] without running into a camera.”35 Despite the mounting legal pressure, Flock has focused its efforts on building a considerable lobbying campaign in an attempt to shield itself from any congressional action or unwanted attention in the halls of power; in 2025 alone, Flock’s lobbying expenditures totaled $920,000, and that number is only growing.36

Abuse of this Technology

The average, law-abiding citizen may not feel concern over this growing surveillance infrastructure. Instead, they might view it as a matter of safety, a necessary refinement of the enforcement of law and order that is only concerned with catching criminals. However, as these patterns continue to be strengthened by the daily erosion of rights and increasing criminalization of dissident behavior, this system of surveillance continues to become more alarming.

Women crossing state lines to seek an abortion are already being tracked by Flock’s network so that they may potentially face prosecution when they return home. One report found that “authorities in Texas performed a nationwide search of more than 83,000 [Flock] cameras while looking for a woman who they said had a self-administered abortion, including cameras in states where abortion is legal.”37 These searches were over a month-long period, and the listed reason in the database for the searches was: “had an abortion, search for female.”38 Just a short time ago, abortion rights were protected under Roe v. Wade; imagine how the utility of this surveillance system can be further used as citizen’s rights continue to be stripped elsewhere. 

Partners and ex-partners of law enforcement officers have also been on the receiving end of abuse and stalking, with Flock cameras as the primary instrument of harassment. Police Captain Lee Nygaard of Sedgwick, Kansas searched his ex-girlfriend’s name 164 times on Flock’s national database after she ended their relationship.39 He is far from alone; at least 20 other officers have been caught doing the same, often hundreds of times, and the greatest consequence many of them faced was early retirement–with pay.40 41 42 And it isn’t limited to police: anyone can request Flock’s data, thanks to a federal judge in Washington state who ruled that police images taken by these cameras are considered public records.43 This means that anyone, including a bad actor, can file a Freedom of Information Act request, pull camera data, and reconstruct someone’s routine, home address, and workplace. Domestic abusers, stalkers, and private investigators have already exploited this. Thankfully, however, Florida is one of a few states that has ruled that records containing images and data generated through ALPR systems are confidential and exempt from release.

Immigration enforcement is by far the most extensive documented abuse of these Flock surveillance and data collection systems Leaked emails and journalism efforts have revealed the pattern of local police sharing their login information with federal agents to conduct illegal searches for immigration violations, even in states where such use of ALPR data is prohibited.44 45 According to a department memo, one detective “stated it was ‘common’ to allow other [federal agents] in the [joint taskforce group chat]  to use his login” for their own investigations.46

While many states require safeguards for collecting and accessing ALPR data, Flock has been collecting data without meaningful safeguards or privacy practices. There have been multiple instances of false positives leading to arrests, false imprisonment, and violent law enforcement encounters with innocent people getting dragged from their cars and held at gunpoint with their children.47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 In addition to the inevitable trauma waged against these victims, many of these cases end up generating lawsuits paid for by taxpayers.

Flock has been caught lying

Flock has been caught blatantly lying about some very important things in official statements and on their website. Flock claims its cameras only capture vehicle data, not personal data or facial recognition.55 However, units tested by investigative researcher and YouTuber Benn Jordan show that Flock’s cameras are triggered to take a picture when faces move into view, then store it.56

Flock also claims it “cannot recognize people” and does not “collect or infer race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or other personal traits.”57 This directly contradicts Flock’s own patent which states: “if the identified object is that of a human being, then the object detection module may further analyze the image…to identify different classes of people (male, female, race, etc.) [and] may leverage other, more detailed neural networks to further identify…clothing types [and] gauging height and weight.”58

Flock claims data is stored for only thirty days (unless the municipality contract decides to keep it for longer) and then deleted.59 However, on the devices acquired by Jordan, data older than thirty days was found, including automatic videos taken inside the factory where the devices were built over a year earlier, still stored in its memory.60 Flock also claims data is encrypted for its entire life cycle; in reality, it isn’t encrypted at all, but more on that later.61 62

Fig 4. Screenshot of video footage stored on a Flock Safety Falcon camera from the production line over a year prior, Benn Jordan, “Breaking the Creepy AI in Police Cameras,” 12:32, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY&t=1873s.  

The company’s biggest selling point to law enforcement agencies and city councils is that its technology reduces crime by 9.1%.63 In reality, that claim is based on a study Flock performed in-house with two of its own employees, using intentionally skewed data; even going so far as to say, “we definitely want to show a big swing” in internal email correspondence during the development of their study.64 Two university researchers were brought on at the end and paid handsomely to attach their names to it before they really knew anything about how the study was carried out. Those researchers later took issue with the findings and raised serious ethical concerns, and Flock has been preventing the release of records showing how the study was conducted.65 Numerous other studies show that when you control for other variables and examine national trends over time, Flock, and ALPRs in general, have no significant effect on violent crime rates.66

Flock’s new product: NOVA

None of this has slowed Flock’s appetite for developing newer invasive tech. Flock’s newest product, NOVA, plugs its systems into commercial data brokers offering services like “people lookup.”67 According to internal Flock presentations, Slack chats, and meeting audio, this makes it even easier for subscribers to “jump from license plate reader to person” for national tracking without a warrant or court order.68

NOVA supports 20 different data sources that agencies can toggle on or off, including: social media, campaign finance records, Equifax and TransUnion credit bureaus, property records, law enforcement records, 911 calls, and links to related people such as spouses or family members.69 When NOVA was about to be released, it also touted the inclusion of illegally obtained data scraped from the dark web: hacks and breaches such as the 2021 ParkMobile breach (the QR codes scanned to pay for parking in most major metropolitan areas).70 That data was hacked, leaked online, and scraped up by Flock. After public outcry and internal tension at the company, Flock decided to walk back the dark web data inclusion, but still supports all other sources mentioned.71 So if the data from the cameras weren’t enough, Flock is now scraping the internet for everything on people, pushing it through an AI pattern recognition machine, and serving it up to cops and ICE agents like a Thanksgiving turkey.

Security Vulnerabilities

There have been 47 security issues published on NIST’s National Vulnerability Database for Flock, at the time of Benn Jordan’s research.72 73 In order to bring attention to Flock’s egregious security vulnerabilities and data protection violations, examples of these will be provided below. This section comes with a disclaimer: the following is deliberately vague. It is not a set of instructions for interfering with infrastructure, nor encouragement to do so. Doing that is illegal. This is a brief description of how easily a malicious actor could tamper with or misuse the infrastructure your tax dollars pay for, and access your data stored on these devices.

Flock Safety’s cameras do not require multi-factor authentication, and the weak MFA they do offer as an option isn’t sufficient for federal agencies.74 Strong MFA is mandated by the FCC and FTC. Companies like Uber, Chegg, Drizly, and Blackboard have been prosecuted under Section 5 of the FTC Act for failing to provide it. There have also been multiple documented instances of unauthorized password sharing, with at least 35 accounts leaked.75 One listing on a dark web Russian cybercrime forum offered a law enforcement Flock Safety admin account for sale.76

Physical access to Flock devices is terrifyingly simple. By pressing the single button on the back of a camera a certain number of times in sequence, a person can put it into WiFi pairing mode and gain control of the device with no password. The only difference between connecting to a Flock camera versus a Bluetooth speaker is this: Flock cameras only have one button, and it has to be pressed a few times in a sequence to connect to and control it. Pairing to the device could lead to gaining root access, which allows a hacker to remote control it, download anything to the device, pull data, and escalate privileges.77

Fig 5. Screenshot of Benn Jordan demonstrating how the singular button is used to gain root access to a legally acquired Flock Device, Benn Jordan, “Breaking the Creepy AI in Police Cameras,” 4:53, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uB0gr7Fh6lY&t=1873s.  

Exposed USB ports on the back of Flock cameras are worse still, potentially allowing someone to reroute a camera’s video stream to a remote server, clone apps, capture credentials from people walking nearby, or even replace captured footage.78

Flock’s own demo links have even published API keys (permanent login tokens) that grant database access.79 Additionally, Flock cameras run on old Android hardware and software released a decade ago and discontinued more than five years ago; that means over half a decade with no security updates and 900+ reported vulnerabilities.80 In short, your data is sitting on hardware a teenager with a YouTube tutorial could compromise. Your data is not safe. Even just walking past a compromised device isn’t safe. Despite legal requirements for what little data protections this country provides, Flock is not following them.

What the Flock can we do about it?

Even though the deck is stacked in Flock’s favor, there is still reason for hope. Ninety-five communities across the country have rejected or cancelled Flock contracts, often due to public opposition and council members’ concerns about data privacy and security, or after councils or police departments realized Flock had misled them about its data-sharing features or lack of security.81

Legal battles have also worked. In Seminole County, where commissioners approved a Flock contract in 2023 with no public hearing, a law firm sent a cease-and-desist letter in 2025 arguing that Flock, because it is “engaged in the business of furnishing private investigations,” is therefore legally required under Florida statutes Chapter 493 to hold a private agency license from the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, which it does not have.82 83

Public pressure works, too. In Berkeley, California, hundreds of residents testified at a council meeting that ran past 1 a.m. until the mayor finally flipped to opposing the contract renewal.84 A planned nationwide partnership between Flock and Ring cameras was also cancelled in early 2026 after public backlash.85 

Many of the transgressions described in this article only came to light because organizers managed to pull it out of the bowels of local government themselves through FOIA requests. In Denver, the city council voted unanimously to terminate its contract after pressure from civil liberties groups and revelations about immigration-related searches in the audit logs.86 In Eugene, Oregon, community members were the ones who discovered a camera had been quietly reactivated after the city ordered it shut off.87

But what actions can Floridians take here in Orlando? The first step is always to gain visibility. While Florida’s exemptions thankfully block public records requests for personal data, those same records laws can be used to obtain information about institutional contracts with Flock Safety. Contracts, vendor agreements, and usage policies are all public records. Residents can file public records requests with the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, Orange County Government, and the City of Orlando, asking specifically for the Flock Safety contract, data retention policies, any fusion-center data-sharing agreements, and the search audit logs.

The community can also push for policy. One of the most effective approaches is meeting council members privately: residents can contact their offices by phone or email, suggest a 15–20 minute meeting at a coffee shop or their office, and start the conversation by mentioning they are a constituent concerned about ALPRs.88 Ahead of time, concerned citizens should bring written notes, keep points personal to themselves and their community, ask the councilmember’s opinion, and respond to concerns with their own ideas for a feasible solution.

Residents should also attend city council and county commission meetings where Flock contracts are up for renewal, sign up for public comment, and prepare and practice a two-to-three-minute statement. Residents can hold pro-Flock councilmembers accountable and demand public hearings before any new deployment. Flock has installed cameras in some communities without the required permits, so a signed contract isn’t always a given. There are several helpful resources for civil engagement specifically in regard to opposing Flock, notably at https://deflock.org/council and https://shorturl.at/SnJKL 

Finally, it is strongly advised to build countersurveillance habits. Add to and utilize the nationwide, crowdsourced map on https://deflock.org/ that shows known cameras along your routes. If a resident wants to know if they have been searched on Flock’s database, they can check https://haveibeenflocked.com/ to easily see if their data has been pulled in any released FOIA requests.

Conclusion

None of this is irreparable. Flock’s roots have spread as fast as they have precisely because they are counting on no one paying attention; on contracts buried in consent agendas, on “reasons” left blank in audit logs, on the comfortable assumption that the law-abiding have nothing to fear. But a dragnet that tracks abortion-seekers, immigrants, protesters, and ex-partners does not sort people by guilt or innocence; it records everyone indefinitely and waits. The question was never about whether a person has something to hide; it’s about whether they’re willing to live under a permanent, unaccountable, for-profit surveillance system that keeps a log of everywhere they go, everyone they meet, and everything they do.

The encouraging part is that this is a fight local communities keep winning. Ninety-five communities have already shown Flock the door; not through any single legal silver bullet, but through neighbors who filed the records request, packed the council chamber, and refused to let surveillance infrastructure get rubber-stamped in the dark. Orlando can be the next on the growing list of communities that fight back. The cameras are already here, and more are coming; what happens next depends on how many of us decide that being watched is not the price of living in our city.

This article was researched, written, and edited by human experts. No AI was used in its creation.

Footnotes

  1. GlobeNewswire, “Flock Safety Raises $275 Million to Advance the Safety Technology Ecosystem and Strengthen Communities Across the U.S,” Yahoo Finance, March 13, 2025, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/flock-safety-raises-275-million-130000329.html. ↩︎
  2. Roberto J. González, “The Rise of the Techno-Tyrants: Silicon Valley’s right-wing past, present, and future,” in State of Power 2026: Fascism, Transnational Institute (TNI), 2026, 77, https://www.tni.org/en/article/the-rise-of-the-techno-tyrants.   ↩︎
  3. Brian Didlake, “‘Shocking violation:’ Lake County commissioners order takedown of secret surveillance cameras,” WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando, August 12, 2021, https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2021/08/12/shocking-violation-of-procedure-lake-county-commissioners-order-takedown-of-traffic-surveillance-cameras/.   ↩︎
  4. DeFlock, “Welcome to DeFlock: An open-source project mapping license plate readers,” July 11, 2026, https://deflock.org/.  ↩︎
  5. Flock Safety, “License Plate Readers (LPR): Go Beyond Plates With LPR That Accelerates Cases,” 2026, https://www.flocksafety.com/products/license-plate-readers.  ↩︎
  6. Jay Stanley, “Flock’s Aggressive Expansions Go Far Beyond Simple Driver Surveillance,” ACLU, August 18, 2025, https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup. ↩︎
  7. Garret Langley and Matt Fleury, System and method for object based query of video content captured by a dynamic surveillance network, US Patent 11416545B1, filed October 4, 2020, and issued August 16, 2022, https://patents.google.com/patent/US11416545B1. ↩︎
  8. Thomas Brewster, “Flock’s AI Cameras Are Watching Cars All Over America. They’re About To Get A Lot More Powerful,” Forbes, June 4, 2025, https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2025/06/04/flocks-ai-cameras-are-watching-cars-all-over-america-theyre-about-to-get-a-lot-more-powerful/.  ↩︎
  9. Jay Stanley, “Surveillance Company Flock Now Using AI to Report Us to Police if it Thinks Our Movement Patterns Are ‘Suspicious,’” ACLU, July 23, 2025, https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/tracking-alpr-cameras/surveillance-company-flock-now-using-ai-to-report-us-to-police-if-it-thinks-our-movement-patterns-are-suspicious. ↩︎
  10. Deflock, “Welcome.” ↩︎
  11. Ron Wyden, “Wyden Letter to Flock,” United States Senate, (October 16, 2025): 2, https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_letter_to_flock.pdf.   ↩︎
  12. Stanley, “Flock’s Aggressive Expansions.” ↩︎
  13. Jay Stanley, “Surveillance Company Flock Now Using AI to Report Us to Police if it Thinks Our Movement Patterns Are ‘Suspicious,’” ACLU, July 23, 2025, https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/tracking-alpr-cameras/surveillance-company-flock-now-using-ai-to-report-us-to-police-if-it-thinks-our-movement-patterns-are-suspicious.  ↩︎
  14. Jason Koebler, “Home Depot and Lowe’s Share Data From Hundreds of AI Cameras With Cops,” 404 Media, August 6, 2025, https://www.404media.co/home-depot-and-lowes-share-data-from-hundreds-of-ai-cameras-with-cops/.  ↩︎
  15. Stanley, “Flock’s Aggressive Expansions.” ↩︎
  16. Jason Koebler, “City Learns Flock Accessed Cameras in Children’s Gymnastics Room as a Sales Pitch Demo, Renews Contract Anyway,” 404 Media, April 30, 2026, https://www.404media.co/city-learns-flock-accessed-cameras-in-childrens-gymnastics-room-as-a-sales-pitch-demo-renews-contract-anyway/.  ↩︎
  17. Deflock, “Welcome.” ↩︎
  18. DeFlock, “Network Explorer: ALPR data-sharing relationships,” July 11, 2026, https://maps.deflock.org/?mode=network&lat=39.0000&lng=-97.7372&zoom=4.00.  ↩︎
  19. Anthony Talcott, “Here’s everything you need to know about Florida’s new ‘license plate’ law,” WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando, April 22, 2026, https://www.clickorlando.com/news/florida/2025/10/13/heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-floridas-new-license-plate-law/.  ↩︎
  20. Jack Lemnus, “Florida police use Flock license plate cameras for ICE surveillance,” TCPalm, April 6, 2026, https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/florida/2026/04/06/florida-police-use-flock-license-plate-cameras-for-ice-surveillance/89243062007/.  ↩︎
  21. Jack Lemnus, “Florida police ramp up use of Flock license plate readers for ICE,” TCPalm, June 1, 2026, https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/florida/2026/06/01/florida-police-ramp-up-use-of-flock-license-plate-readers-for-ice-immigration-camera-trump/90286883007/.  ↩︎
  22. ACLU Massachusetts, “ACLU of MA Letter to Municipal Leaders,” last updated January 9, 2026, 13:51 (UTC), https://www.aclum.org/app/uploads/2026/01/ACLU-MA-LPR-letter.pdf.  ↩︎
  23. Kara Newhouse, “Florida troopers tapped surveillance network for immigration searches,” Orlando Sentinel, June 15, 2025, https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2025/06/15/florida-troopers-tapped-surveillance-network-for-immigration-searches/.  ↩︎
  24. Jack Lemnus, “Florida police used Flock cameras to track No Kings protesters,” TCPalm, April 22, 2026, https://www.tcpalm.com/story/news/local/florida/2026/04/22/florida-police-use-flock-cameras-track-anti-trump-protesters-no-kings-50501-hands-off-immigration/89659565007/.  ↩︎
  25. Dave Maass and Rindala Alajiji, “How Cops Are Using Flock Safety’s ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists,” Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 20, 2025, https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/how-cops-are-using-flock-safetys-alpr-network-surveil-protesters-and-activists.  ↩︎
  26. Maass and Alajiji, “How Cops Are Using Flock Safety’s ALPR Network.” ↩︎
  27. Alexi Giannoulias,  “Giannoulias’ Audit Finds License Plate Reader Company in Violation of State Law: Flock Safety Shared Illinois Data with U.S. Customs and Border Protection Secretary Orders Flock to Shut off Data Access,” Office of the Illinois Secretary of State, (August 25, 2025): 1-2, https://www.ilsos.gov/content/dam/news/2025/august/250825d1.pdf    ↩︎
  28. Lemnus, “Florida police used Flock cameras to track No Kings protesters.” ↩︎
  29. Jason Koebler, “Police Told to Be ‘as Vague as Permissible’ About Why They Use Flock,” 404 Media, January 27, 2026, https://www.404media.co/police-told-to-be-as-vague-as-permissible-about-why-they-use-flock/.  ↩︎
  30. Victoria Pera, “Orlando’s license plate readers aim to bolster downtown safety. For some, they raise privacy concerns,” Central Florida Public Media, September 2, 2025, https://www.cfpublic.org/politics/2025-09-02/orlando-license-plate-readers-downtown-safety-privacy-concerns.  ↩︎
  31. Catherine Silver, “As More Florida Agencies Turn to License Plate Readers, Local Lawmaker Wants More Regulation,” WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando, June 25, 2025, https://www.clickorlando.com/news/local/2025/06/25/as-more-florida-agencies-turn-to-license-plate-readers-local-lawmaker-wants-more-regulation/.  ↩︎
  32. U.S. Const. amend. IV ↩︎
  33. Oyez, “Carpenter v. United States (2018),” last updated October 17, 2025, 12:54 (UTC), https://www.oyez.org/cases/2017/16-402. ↩︎
  34. Harvard Law Review, “Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle v. Baltimore Police Department: Fourth Circuit Holds Warrantless Access of Aerial Surveillance Data Unconstitutional,” 135, no. 3 (January 2022): 922-23, https://harvardlawreview.org/print/vol-135/leaders-of-a-beautiful-struggle-v-baltimore-police-department/?ref=404media.co.  ↩︎
  35. Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), “Schmidt v. City of Norfolk, Order Denying Motion to Dismiss,” No. 2:24-CV-00621-MSD-LRL, E.D. Va (Feb. 05, 2025): 3-4, https://epic.org/documents/schmidt-v-city-of-norfolk-order-denying-motion-to-dismiss/.  ↩︎
  36. OpenSecrets, “Flock Safety: Annual federal lobbying spending, 2024-2026,” Chart, last updated April 27, 2026, https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/flock-safety?client_id=160242&cycle=2025.  ↩︎
  37. Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler, “A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion,” 404 Media, May 29, 2025, https://www.404media.co/a-texas-cop-searched-license-plate-cameras-nationwide-for-a-woman-who-got-an-abortion/.  ↩︎
  38. Cox and Koebler, “A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras.” ↩︎
  39. Michael Stavola, “Kansas police chief used Flock license plate cameras 164 times to track ex-girlfriend,” The Wichita Eagle, August 17, 2024, https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article291059560.html.  ↩︎
  40. Christopher Ingraham, “Police Have Reportedly Used License Plate Readers to Stalk Romantic Interests at Least 21 Times in Recent Years,” Institute for Justice, April 27, 2026, https://ij.org/police-have-reportedly-used-license-plate-readers-to-stalk-romantic-interests-at-least-14-times-in-recent-years/?ref=404media.co.  ↩︎
  41. Jason Koebler, “Cops Keep Getting Arrested for Using Flock to Stalk People,” 404 Media, June 10, 2026, https://www.404media.co/cops-keep-getting-arrested-for-using-flock-to-stalk-people/.  ↩︎
  42. Kansas Watch, ALPR Abuse Library, accessed July 7, 2026, https://library.kansas.watch/?ref=404media.co. ↩︎
  43. Jason Koebler, “Judge Rules Flock Surveillance Images Are Public Records That Can Be Requested By Anyone,” 404 Media, November 12, 2025, https://www.404media.co/judge-rules-flock-surveillance-images-are-public-records-that-can-be-requested-by-anyone/.  ↩︎
  44. Jason Koebler, “Feds Used Local Cop’s Password to Do Immigration Surveillance With Flock Cameras,” 404 Media, August 15, 2025, https://www.404media.co/feds-used-local-cops-password-to-do-immigration-surveillance-with-flock-cameras/.  ↩︎
  45. Jason Koebler, “Emails Reveal the Casual Surveillance Alliance Between ICE and Local Police,” 404 Media, June 16, 2025, https://www.404media.co/emails-reveal-the-casual-surveillance-alliance-between-ice-and-local-police/.  ↩︎
  46. Raven Geary and Steve Held, “DEA agent used Illinois cop’s Flock license plate reader password for immigration enforcement searches,” Unraveled, August 11, 2025, https://unraveledpress.com/a-dea-agent-used-an-illinois-police-officers-flock-license-plate-reader-password-for-unauthorized-immigration-enforcement-searches/.  ↩︎
  47. Sasha Lenninger, “License plate cover leads to traffic stop mishap,” KOAT 7 ABC News, September 28, 2023, https://www.koat.com/article/espanola-police-license-plate-stolen-cover-traffic-stop/45361740.  ↩︎
  48. Nicole Einbinder, “Flock Flocked up,” Business Insider, March 9, 2026, https://www.businessinsider.com/flock-safety-alpr-cameras-misreads-2026-3.  ↩︎
  49. Jesse Marx and Dorian Hargrove, “A Flock license plate reader linked a San Diego man to a violent crime. He was five miles away.,” Times of San Diego, June 7, 2026, https://timesofsandiego.com/crime/2026/06/07/a-flock-license-plate-reader-linked-a-san-diego-man-to-a-violent-crime-he-was-five-miles-away/.  ↩︎
  50. Spencer Soicher, “Not a one-off: More Coloradans stopped by police after data errors triggered Flock alerts,” 9 News, April 30, 2026, https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/coloradan-stopped-by-police-data-errors-flock-alerts/73-593a3772-f43d-46b1-8744-af888b9bd7f2. ↩︎
  51. Spencer Soicher, “He didn’t commit a crime, but Flock cam alerts keep getting him pulled over,” 9 News, April 26, 2026, https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/rime-flock-cam-pulled-over/73-e3f65018-32a5-4bb0-a4ac-26fb24dc9a15.  ↩︎
  52. Julianne McShane, “Body camera footage shows Black family held at gunpoint after police typo IDs car as stolen,” NBC News, August 1, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/firsco-texas-family-held-gunpoint-after-police-typo-stolen-car-rcna97246.  ↩︎
  53. “Flock camera error leads police to detain wrong man,” KING 5 Seattle, Nov 14, 2025, YouTube, 3 min., 5 sec., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlHL7bhMb1M.  ↩︎
  54. Jason Koebler, “Cop Used Flock to Wrongfully Accuse a Woman Then Refused to Look at Evidence That Exonerated Her, Body Camera Shows,” 404 Media, January 14, 2026, https://www.404media.co/cop-used-flock-to-wrongfully-accuse-a-woman-then-refused-to-look-at-evidence-that-exonerated-her-body-camera-shows/.  ↩︎
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  58. Langley and Fleury, System and method for object based query of video content captured by a dynamic surveillance network. ↩︎
  59. Flock, “Safety Is a Fundamental Right.” ↩︎
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 and Manages Data,” accessed July 7, 2026, https://www.flocksafety.com/trust/data-privacy.  ↩︎
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  65. Koebler, “Let’s Talk About the Flock Study.” ↩︎
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  68. Cox, “Flock is Building a Massive Lookup Tool.” ↩︎
  69. Cox, “Flock is Building a Massive Lookup Tool.” ↩︎
  70. Cox, “Flock is Building a Massive Lookup Tool.” ↩︎
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  72. Jordan, “Breaking the Creepy AI in Police Cameras.” ↩︎
  73. National Vulnerability Database (NVD), “NVD Vulnerability Search: Keyword ‘Flock Safety,’” National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S. Department of Commerce, 2026, https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/search#/nvd/home?keyword=%22flock%20safety%22&resultType=records.  ↩︎
  74. Wyden, “Letter to Flock,” 2. ↩︎
  75. Wyden, “Letter to Flock,” 2. ↩︎
  76. Jordan, “Breaking the Creepy AI in Police Cameras.” ↩︎
  77. Jordan, “Breaking the Creepy AI in Police Cameras.” ↩︎
  78. Jordan, “Breaking the Creepy AI in Police Cameras.” ↩︎
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  80. Jordan, “Breaking the Creepy AI in Police Cameras.” ↩︎
  81. Deflock, “City Council,” accessed July 28, 2026, https://deflock.org/council/. ↩︎
  82. Silver, “Local Lawmaker Wants More Regulation.” ↩︎
  83. Fla. Stat. ch. 493 (2024). ↩︎
  84. Amanda Hari, “Berkeley city leaders vote on Flock camera contract,” Kron 4, May 8 2026, https://www.kron4.com/news/bay-area/berkeley-city-leaders-vote-on-flock-camera-contract/ ↩︎
  85. Flock Safety, “Flock and Ring Cancel Announced Community Requests Integration,” Feb. 12, 2026, https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/an-update-on-ring-partnership.  https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/an-update-on-ring-partnership  ↩︎
  86. Paolo Zialcita and Kyle Harris, “Denver rejects $666,000 extension for license-plate surveillance cameras after backlash,” Denverite, May 5, 2025, https://denverite.com/2025/05/05/denver-rejects-flock-camera-license-plate-readers/. / Zialcita and Harris, “Denver rejects $666,000 extension for license-plate surveillance cameras.”  ↩︎
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Snow, Adam and Cory Charpentier. “Flock Safety Technologies in Law Enforcement: An Initial Evaluation of Effectiveness in Aiding Police in Real-World Crime Clearance.” Flock Safety, (2024): 1-20. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/377845222_Flock_Safety_Technologies_in_Law_Enforcement_An_Initial_Evaluation_of_Effectiveness_in_Aiding_Police_in_Real-World_Crime_Clearance. 

Soicher, Spencer. “Not a one-off: More Coloradans stopped by police after data errors triggered Flock alerts.” 9 News, April 30, 2026. https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/coloradan-stopped-by-police-data-errors-flock-alerts/73-593a3772-f43d-46b1-8744-af888b9bd7f2. 

Soicher, Spencer. “He didn’t commit a crime, but Flock cam alerts keep getting him pulled over.” 9 News, April 26, 2026. https://www.9news.com/article/news/local/rime-flock-cam-pulled-over/73-e3f65018-32a5-4bb0-a4ac-26fb24dc9a15. 

Stanley, Jay. “Flock’s Aggressive Expansions Go Far Beyond Simple Driver Surveillance.” ACLU, August 18, 2025. https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup. 

Stanley, Jay. “Surveillance Company Flock Now Using AI to Report Us to Police if it Thinks Our Movement Patterns Are ‘Suspicious,’” ACLU, July 23, 2025. https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/tracking-alpr-cameras/surveillance-company-flock-now-using-ai-to-report-us-to-police-if-it-thinks-our-movement-patterns-are-suspicious.   

Stavola, Michael. “Kansas police chief used Flock license plate cameras 164 times to track ex-girlfriend.” The Wichita Eagle, August 17, 2024. https://www.kansas.com/news/politics-government/article291059560.html. 

Talcott, Anthony. “Here’s everything you need to know about Florida’s new ‘license plate’ law.” WKMG News 6 ClickOrlando, April 22, 2026. https://www.clickorlando.com/news/florida/2025/10/13/heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-floridas-new-license-plate-law/. 

Webster, Tony. Photograph taken in Aurora, Colorado on June 27, 2024, of a Flock Safety automated license plate reader–or ALPR–camera outside a retail store. Wisconsin Public Radio. https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-police-forces-use-cameras-track-vehicles-communities-worry-overreach. 

Wyden, Ron. “Wyden Letter to Flock.” United States Senate, (October 16, 2025): 1-3. https://www.wyden.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/wyden_letter_to_flock.pdf  

Zialcita, Paolo, and Kyle Harris.  “Denver rejects $666,000 extension for license-plate surveillance cameras after backlash,” Denverite, May 5, 2025. https://denverite.com/2025/05/05/denver-rejects-flock-camera-license-plate-readers/.