Flock & ALPR Cameras in Ely, Iowa
Volunteers have reported 6 automated license plate readers in and around Ely — cameras that log every passing plate with a time and location.
Jurisdiction · by recorded street address
The 6 cameras counted on this page are every reader mapped within about 20 kilometres of Ely, so the count crosses municipal lines. By the street address recorded for each one, 0 of them sit inside Ely itself.
The rest sit in Cedar Rapids (6).
5 of them name an operator in the record: Kirkwood Community College (4), Cedar Rapids Police Department (1). The operator is who runs the camera, which is not always the local government.
Source: community-mapped camera data (OpenStreetMap, ODbL), with addresses resolved by Nominatim.
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No new reports near Ely in the last 30 days — checked hourly, last checked Oct 8, 02:13 UTC. Cameras only get on the map when someone looks: be the one.
Where the cameras are in Ely
The readers mapped around Ely break down as 4 Avigilon, 2 Flock Safety. Named operators in the reports: Kirkwood Community College, Cedar Rapids Police Department. The first camera here was reported in Feb 2025; the most recent in Jun 2026.
- Kirkwood Boulevard Southwest — 1 reader
- Bowling Street Trail — 1 reader
- Kirkwood Parkway Southwest — 1 reader
- Iowa View Parkway Southwest — 1 reader
- Johnson View Parkway Southwest — 1 reader
- Washington View Parkway Southwest — 1 reader
Ely in the Linn County picture
Linn County has 80 reported cameras county-wide and ranks #890 of 3,222 U.S. counties for cameras per resident. That’s across 229,463 residents and 1,852 road miles. By road density that is 0.04 cameras per road mile, in the top 14.7% of counties nationally.
Where contributors recorded what a camera watches, the split here is 6 traffic. Operators named on the record: Kirkwood Community College (4), Cedar Rapids Police Department (1).
What’s watching Ely
These aren’t red-light cameras. Automated license plate readers like Flock Safety’s photograph every plate that passes, log the time and place, and store it in a searchable database that’s often shared far beyond Ely — here’s where that data goes. Counts cover cameras reported closest to Ely (within ~20 km), so nearby towns share the same corridors. Spot one that’s missing? Report it on DeFlock.
The latest around Ely
- 5 license plate readers reported removed near Ely, IA
- DAVID MARCUS: Canada sees Trump trade war as ‘life and death’ while Americans barely notice
What you can do in Ely
Ask who approved these cameras, how long plate data is kept, and who it’s shared with. File a public records request, raise it at a council meeting, and see the full playbook on Take Action. Fighting this locally? Join or start a chapter and we’ll amplify you.
Not sure what one looks like? See photographs of installed cameras before you go looking.
Cameras near Ely
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Camera reports: the open-source DeFlock project. Place data: GeoNames (CC BY).