De-Flock App

Our Take

Credit where it's due: Palmetto Dissident is doing exactly the kind of grassroots work this fight needs — picking up a tool, testing it, and showing an audience how to actually use it. We don't have the full transcript in front of us, but the premise alone matters: putting a crowdsourced ALPR-mapping app in more hands means more cameras get documented, more blind spots get filled in, and more communities find out just how much their daily movements are being logged by Flock Safety and similar vendors.

This is the uncomfortable truth about automated license plate readers — most people have no idea they're driving past one, let alone how many sit on their commute, outside their kid's school, or down their own street. Apps and projects built to log these cameras flip that script. They turn passive surveillance into something visible, searchable, and ultimately contestable. That's the whole idea behind our own camera map: the more eyes on the ground reporting what they see, the harder it gets for this infrastructure to expand quietly.

Tools are only half the battle, though. Knowing where the cameras are is step one; doing something about it — showing up to a city council meeting, filing a records request, pushing back on a new contract — is step two. If this video got you thinking about what's watching your street, use it as a jumping-off point and check out our take-action resources for ways to push back where you live.