By Michael Hernandez
You probably know there are programs out there intercepting electronic data to harvest global emails, chats, and browsing histories. And there are governments and agencies collecting our metadata for information including the durations of our calls, communication time stamps, and precise geolocation records. There are facial recognition networks scanning anyone and everyone in public spaces, transit hubs, and protests to match faces against immense biometric databases.
In our world — one that is increasingly resembling the totalitarian superstate of Oceania in George Orwell’s 1984 — these are just a few of the tools being used in the modern day to spy on everyday Americans. Among them in the mass-surveillance toolbox are Automatic License Plate Readers, or ALPRs. ALPRs are cameras set up along roadways, traffic lights, or mounted on police cars that capture images of license plates in real-time, convert them into text and run the images against vehicle databases to find a match.
One of the major providers of ALPR technology is Flock Safety, an American public safety tech and private-police surveillance company.
Founded in 2017 by three alumni from the Georgia Institute of Technology with a stated mission of “shaping the future of safety”, Flock began as a side-project which saw the three co-founders build their first video surveillance cameras by hand around one of the trio’s dining room tables. The trio allegedly began to focus on the project after a Dekalb County detective told one of them their product had assisted police in solving a home break-in. Then that member supposedly called the other two co-founders and told them it was time to quit their jobs.
As of 2026 Flock Safety ALPRs are reportedly being used by over 5,000 law enforcement agencies in 6,000 communities across the U.S. It is estimated flock safety cameras scan more than 20 billion cars nationwide every month. According to Flock itself, roughly 10 percent of reported crimes in the country are solved using their technology, amounting to more than a purported 700,000 crimes a year.
Flock Safety’s network is made up of cameras, image recognition, and AI machine learning which then shares information with police departments. While advocates tout the technology as an important tool for law enforcement, ALPRs have drawn a heavy amount of backlash from the public, elected officials, and civil liberty groups citing privacy concerns.
Unlike normal traffic cameras, Automatic License Plate Readers indiscriminately record and track every single car that drives into frame. Then, using an AI algorithm it catalogs information like the car’s make, model, color, license plate, and even bumper stickers and scratches that can be used to identify a vehicle.
One organization leading the fight against ALPRs, like Flock, at the national level is the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — a non-profit founded over 100 years ago dedicated to preserving and defending our individual rights and liberties under the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. In the campaign and initiatives section of their website titled Get the Flock Out, the ACLU accuses ALPR companies including Flock Safety of trying to build a “nationwide mass-surveillance system” adding if there are Flock cameras currently in your area they are already warrantlessly tracking, logging, and sharing your movements. They add one should not lose hope however, as a growing number of communities are rejecting and fighting back against the use of such cameras and yours still has the opportunity to become of them.
The ACLU notes there are roughly 120,000 Flock cameras currently installed in areas both rural and urban, on highways, in neighborhoods, on reservations and on local businesses. They also note less than one percent of cars being scanned all of the time by ALPRs are ever linked to any crime or wrongdoing. Additionally, one in every 10 license plates scanned by Flock license plate readers are misread by the technology, leading to wrongful arrests– such as the 2024 case of Brandon Upchurch, an innocent man from Ohio who was falsely accused of driving a stolen vehicle when an officer sicced a K-9 unit on him. It was later revealed a camera made by Flock Safety misread the number “7” on Upchurch’s license plate as a number “2” leading to the mishap.
The ACLU goes on to say while Flock is the provider of the most widely used ALPR systems they are not even close to being the only company trying to make a profit off of spying on us, naming other companies including, but not limited to Axon, Vigilant Solutions, Genetec, and Innova Systems as other leading players selling ALPRs to private companies, the police, and more. No matter whose camera is installed in your neighborhood however, they all share the same problems, a lack of transparency, accountability, and oversight.
The implications of what might happen should this kind of technology be allowed to operate unchecked are disturbing. ALPRs are constantly tracking where we drive, our places of worship, and more likely than not the political protests and meetings we are attending. ICE and the border patrol especially have demonstrated the weaponization and abuse of Flock’s technology by using it to go after immigrants without a warrant. Luckily, cities and police departments throughout the country are cancelling their contracts with the company in response to pressure from the public, says the ACLU. The organization lauds that their affiliates are supporting and, in fact, passing legislation to regulate how ALPRs are being used. They also urge the public to demand their congressional representatives reject the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act (CORCA), a bipartisan federal bill targeting large-scale multi-jurisdictional retail theft and cargo crime rings. Critics warn by merging corporate retail data with federal law enforcement, CORCA is creating a vast public-private surveillance network.
In addition to opposing the use of ALPRs through policy, there is a rising wave of civil disobedience and vandalism against these cameras throughout the United States. A CNN article titled Flock Cameras Are Getting Mobbed, posted at the end of July, details incidents in the last few months of people cutting down Flock cameras with an electric saw in upstate New York, throwing paint on them in Oakland, California, and in Idaho, someone even deliberately rammed their truck into two ALPRs.
Another article by The Guardian, titled Inside the Growing Vigilante Movement to Knock Out Flock Surveillance Cameras, identifies “at least 33 instances of people damaging, vandalizing and destroying Flock cameras, across 23 states, that appear to have the explicit message of protesting surveillance”. That article also detailed instances in which police misused these cameras for their own personal ends as well, noting several officers have been terminated for misusing the devices for the purpose of stalking. As if that wasn’t scary enough, it has been reported that police use Flock’s search feature to identify people through not just vehicles, but distinct markers like clothing and tattoos.
More locally, in late 2023 the San Diego City Council approved a 5-year, $12 million contract for a police surveillance network spanning over 500 smart streetlights and Flock ALPRs.This move was met with immediate pushback from groups like the leading non-profit organization defending digital privacy, free speech, and user innovation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF is currently fighting the use of Flock Safety through investigations of public records, covering the legal fees in defense of grassroots activists, and by exposing instances of surveillance overreach.
In one local reaction to the surveillance cameras, back in February, at least two Flock Automatic License Plate Readers were destroyed along Fletcher Parkway in La Mesa, with their pieces scattered along the road and in the center median.
San Diego City Council members Vivian Moreno, Sean Elo-Rivera and Henry Foster III voted “No” when the city first approved the smart streetlights and Flock camera network. Both have joined community advocates in urging the city to cease the use of Flock ALPRs. In June of this year, these three council members along with president pro tempore of the San Diego City Council Kent Lee, proposed cutting funds for ALPR cameras, in order to restore financial cuts made to arts and culture programs, rec centers and libraries. They were unsuccessful.
As the debate over the use of these devices across the city and the nation at large continues, the words written in 1755 by founding father Benjamin Franklin come to mind. Though he was most likely writing about a tax dispute at the time and as innovative as he was, he could never have envisioned a future society with 24-hour surveillance when he said “those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”.
ALPRs track cars out in public where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.
Are CCTV cameras, security cameras, Ring cameras and dash-cams violators of our “Right To Privacy” ?
And what about cell phones ? Aren’t those also “warrantlessly tracking, logging, and sharing your movements” ?
Is the issue the recording of imagery or the subsequent analysis and use to identify vehicles that is the problem ?
While there will certainly be abuses or errors like the lone example provided of the incorrectly read plate, errors and abuses take place with all technologies. Warrants are issued for incorrect addresses and yet there is no call to dispense with those.
Perhaps it is the cost, a valid concern. If we had a list of all successful uses of ALPRs (and not from Flock either) along with a list of ALPR errors and abuses (especially those that result in a lawsuit) we could evaluate them on a cost-benefit basis.
Or is it the emotional issue of ICE making use of them that has created the “uproar” ? This is one place where the article veers from unbiased reporting to agenda-driving –
“ICE and the border patrol especially have demonstrated the weaponization and abuse of Flock’s technology by using it to go after immigrants without a warrant.”
Note the unjustified emphasis in the use of the word “especially”. No examples or sources are given for any part of this sentence. Are we expected to simply take the writer’s word for it that “abuse” and “weaponization” have taken place, and that their purpose was to “go after immigrants without a warrant” ? This is an obvious case of attempting to produce a strong emotional reaction without justification. Is such media manipulation acceptable to us while enforcement of Federal immigration laws is not ?
Certainly there should be oversight and accountability to identify and correct abuses/errors of surveillance in public, but to portray this as a violation of privacy is simply too far off base to be taken seriously, at least not as presented here.
Robert, ICE isn’t an “emotional issue” its a humanitarian issue. Your mask is slipping off, make sure to readjust it when tasting that boot.
Flock cameras being used by law enforcement to spy on people they know:
https://abcnews.com/US/officer-allegedly-flock-license-plate-cameras-track-boyfriends/story?id=135418955
Border Patrol weaponizing this technology to go after immigrants with no warrant or due process: https://apnews.com/article/immigration-border-patrol-surveillance-drivers-ice-trump-9f5d05469ce8c629d6fecf32d32098cd
More on abuses, privacy concerns and how flock is used to create predictors of crime before it even happens: https://www.wuft.org/public-safety/2026-06-22/flock-ai-security-cameras-spark-concerns-over-privacy-misuse-among-gainesville-residents
Also, it seems like you should read this book: https://a.co/d/0eqIUe9y
Just you know, police officers using flock cameras to track down a woman across state lines just so she can get access to an abortion clinic is 100% a violation of privacy – but yes yes, more “oversight” and “accountability” is needed for the people with qualified immunity and zero oversight as it is. “Cost-Benefit” lol… there is no benefit to us when our technofascist overlords are collecting all our data to determine wether have the right to exist or to have any semblance of privacy. This isn’t about Federal immigration laws, its about control and surveillance over the entire population. Give me a break.
Why is not being discussed what happens with the data? Most importantly how long is it allowed to be stored?! I assume there currently is zero regulation? The data can be stored indefinitely and sold on to other companies? I would welcome more insight on this, as part of the discussion, it makes a significant difference in my eyes whether or not any of those cameras should be allowed to be installed in the first place. I can see the advantages for safety, but there have to be trustworthy and reliable safeguards for me to support this kind of surveillance. I am sure I am not the only one?
You’re entitled Robert, but you’re going against the grain of common sense … and history for that matter. Re-read the Ben Franklin quote, will ya?
Frank – Even the author acknowledges that Ben Franklin and surveillance cameras were separated by over 250 years, and that the context was likely regarding a tax dispute. So underscoring it serves no purpose. I note that its original reference, “it comes to mind” seems rather glib.
Let’s focus on the central issues without unnecessary rhetoric.
* Do we have a reasonable expectation of privacy when out in public ?
Laws clearly and absolutely prohibit cameras in restrooms, even in your own home. You cannot point a camera at the windows of a residence, as the right to privacy inside one’s own home is well established. The question is where do you have a reasonable expectation of privacy and how do you define that ?
Camera tech that no one protests is plentiful – security cams, dash cams, doorbell cams. Stores, banks, casinos – anywhere theft is a concern, there are surveillance cameras. Restaurants and bars, gas stations and convenience stores, all have cameras. Employers use CCTV, especially on the cash registers, and there is no complaint. We are recorded entering and leaving almost every business establishment, yet there is been no protest that I am aware of. Thus it seems there is no expectation of privacy in public apart from places where you might reasonably assume that no one is watching.
* Who operates and controls the data collected from cameras in public ?
The issue of ownership and access seems to be the primary concern. Quite understandable as we are all familiar with Orwell’s 1984. I would suggest that we are closer to Huxley’s Brave New World, but that is a another subject. Given that we accept privately owned surveillance but we balk at government owned surveillance, what would we think of private companies performing surveillance but readily supplying the data to government entities ? Currently, the police can ask for any of the above mentioned surveillance cameras. Perhaps key to the debate is the fact that the owners of the cameras can refuse such a request, and can only be forced to release it with a warrant. So if there were a third party recording and collecting the data, but no one had access to it unless backed by a warrant, would that then be acceptable ?
Generally it seems that we do not approve of the government recording us, even in public. What about when we enter government buildings ? Does the ownership of the building give the government the right to record us there ? Does this also cover airports
* How is the data used ?
I don’t think most people would object to using cameras technology to identify serious criminals. Who would object to its use in finding out who set a wildfire ? But when we get to non-criminal behavior, I think most of us would draw the line.
For example, tracking protestors who are engaged in non-criminal behavior. But what about recording an entire protest ? Would we object if this enabled us to identify unacceptable police behavior ? Would we object if it enabled us to identify who broke the window, who set the fire, who assaulted whom ?
Many seem to object to analysis of the recordings, like facial recognition software or AI assistance (a vague and essentially undefined term). The primary use of this software is to identify a distinct individual. Is it this specific identification that is unacceptable to us ?
What are the breaking points, where the surveillance goes from acceptable to unacceptable ? The extremes are easy to identify, and there is little debate on them. But where it changes from acceptable to unacceptable is where we need to focus and define. Until we do that, it will remain difficult to arrive at intelligent positions regarding its use.
You really should read the link I pasted to John Oliver’s ‘Police Surveillance Technology’ I put up this morning. He has some really impressive hits against this kind of mass surveillance and how damaging it is.
sealintheSelkirks
Thank you very well said.
If people are not breaking the law, then what’s to worry about? I could care less if there was one outside my door. They’d get pretty bored monitoring me and I think that’s true with the majority of the public. All a person has to do is close their drapes/shutters/etc at nite.
If they’re guilty of breaking the laws, then maybe they should reconsider their lifestyle or walk around being super paranoid.
I believe the cameras are far better for law enforcement so they have some kind of evidence to go on trying to solve crimes.
The three council members who voted against them…… look at the crime stats in their Council Dist. do they have more crimes than the other Districts? Probably yes.
As for the immigrants, they have broken the laws of this country by sneaking in, so there is no warrant needed for local crimes.
Want some salt for that boot.
Sorry, but I don’t have a clue what that means. I have family from the south, but that’s a new one to me. haha
“Sorry, but I don’t have a clue what that means.”
Actually, you do.
Chris, as I said I don’t have a clue what that phrase means. You don’t have a clue about me either to insist I “actually do know”. Don’t act like a cutesy 14 year old.
Here’s a letter to the editor at the U-T:
Ending Flock funding would have freed up money to keep bay bathrooms open
Re “Leaders clash over park restrooms” (July 28): Regarding the alleged spat between Raul Campillo and Todd Gloria over funding for public restrooms: what a crock. I was at the budget meeting where, for six hours, throngs of San Diegans implored both of these men to fund public necessities like public restrooms instead of sending millions of San Diego’s taxpayer dollars to the Atlanta mass-surveillance-for-profit company Flock, which is quickly becoming one of the most despised private companies in the U.S. The City Council had four votes that day to redirect millions of dollars away from Flock, but when it came time for Campillo to show his true values, what was most important to him wasn’t public health, it was yet again shilling for expensive and ineffective warrantless surveillance from Flock. The only toilet Campillo and Gloria really defend is the one they keep flushing our tax dollars down.
— resident of Allied Gardens
I had a few articles saved that were on this topic from the last maybe six months or year or more, but then they disappeared after I had a recent computer blow-out. But since this 1984 Fascist government topic has somehow risen back up, I’ll throw a couple up that are more recent.
Personally, I’m completely against the US continuing down the East Germany road it seems to be sliding down.
Flock Camera CEO Says Critics ‘TERRORISTS’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDV0c-Asd8w
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Here’s a somewhat humorous look at Big Brother 1984 in 2026:
Police Surveillance Technology: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnBPhelCdWE
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sealintheSelkirks