Flock safety has a opt out feature not targeting certain plates letting crooks Rome free
The short version: A YouTuber claims Flock Safety lets certain plates dodge its ALPR dragnet, raising fresh questions about who gets a pass in a system sold as all-seeing.
Our Take
Credit to It's a Mechanic Life Garage for digging into something worth asking about: if Flock Safety's ALPR network can supposedly exempt specific plates from tracking, who decides that list, and why isn't it public? We can't verify the specific mechanics claimed in this video, but the underlying question is exactly the kind of thing a surveillance system marketed as 'accountability for everyone' should have to answer in plain language, not buried in vendor contracts or law enforcement MOUs.
Here's the bigger problem: a camera network that blankets your neighborhood, school drop-off line, and church parking lot doesn't get to also claim selective blind spots without raising obvious questions about favoritism, abuse, or just plain sloppy engineering. If some plates can be quietly whitelisted, that's not a minor technical footnote — it's a crack in the whole 'neutral, automated justice' pitch these companies use to get cities to sign up in the first place.
Whether or not this particular claim holds up to scrutiny, it's a reminder that these systems deserve way more public auditing than they currently get. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and hit up our take-action page if you want to push your local council for real transparency instead of just trusting the sales brochure.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of It's a mechanic life garage, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.