Who’s Watching Who? | Power to the People Show

Our Take

Credit to Darius Pridgen and the Power to the People Show for cutting straight to the question that gets dodged in every Flock Safety sales pitch: license plate readers don't just watch cars, they watch people, and someone with a login can watch anyone. Police departments love to talk about hot lists and stolen vehicles. They talk a lot less about the officer who looks up an ex, the employee who sells access, or the audit log nobody actually reads until after the damage is done.

That's the real story behind every ALPR deployment. It's not just the mounting pole on Main Street, it's the database behind it, the vendor who owns the data pipeline, and the complete absence of meaningful oversight in most towns that install these systems. "Trust us" is not a policy. Neither is an audit trail that only gets checked when a scandal breaks.

If your town has these cameras and you don't know who has access or what the retention policy is, that's a problem worth raising at the next council meeting. Check our camera map to see what's been deployed near you, and head to take action for ways to push back before surveillance infrastructure becomes permanent and unaccountable.