Flock surveillance cameras raise privacy concerns amid immigration enforcement.

Our Take

Credit to KPTV FOX 12 in Portland for putting a local lens on a national problem: license plate reader networks built and sold as neighborhood safety tools have a way of ending up in the hands of federal agencies, including ICE. Flock Safety has repeatedly claimed its systems aren't for immigration enforcement, but the company's own audit trails and reporting have shown otherwise in city after city. Once that data exists in a searchable, networked database, promises about "intended use" don't mean much.

This is the core issue we keep hammering on: a camera installed by your city council to catch car thieves becomes, without any new vote or public debate, a tool that can track who's driving to a church, a clinic, or a rally, and that data can be queried by outside agencies with completely different priorities. Portland residents deserve to know exactly who has access to their movement history and under what rules, not vague reassurances from a vendor with a financial interest in expanding its footprint.

If you want to see how many of these cameras are already watching your own commute, check our map, and if you think your city council should be answering hard questions about data-sharing agreements before renewing a Flock contract, our take-action page has the tools to push back.