License Plate Recognition - 22 Feb 2018 | Eocortex

Our Take

This isn't a Flock video, but that's exactly why it's worth watching. Long before "Flock Safety" became a household name in surveillance debates, companies like Eocortex were already selling license plate recognition as an off-the-shelf feature you could bolt onto any camera system, in any country, with a free trial and a sales form. The webinar format — pitch the use cases, show the interface, do a live demo, ask where to expand next — is the same playbook the whole industry runs on. Plate reading was never invented for any one company's network; it's a commodity capability that vendors have been racing to sell into every parking lot, gated community, and city intersection for over a decade.

What's missing from a pitch like this is exactly what should worry you: no mention of retention limits, no mention of who else gets access to the data, no mention of audits or oversight. It's marketed purely as a technical product — accuracy rates, install tips, remote access — as if a camera that logs every car passing by is no different from a motion sensor. That framing is how mass ALPR surveillance became normalized before most people even knew to ask questions about it.

Whether it's Eocortex, Flock, or the next vendor with a slicker dashboard, the underlying problem is the same: private companies are building databases of where we all drive, and selling access to that as a feature. If you want to see how far this has spread in your own area, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back on it locally, our take-action page is a good place to start.