DeFlock's Will Freeman: Hero of the Week #Shorts

Our Take

Credit where it's due: Verified Privacy VPN's 'Hero of the Week' segment put a spotlight on Will Freeman, the guy behind the DeFlock mapping project, for doing something most people assumed was impossible — building a public, crowdsourced record of where license plate readers actually live. Over 100,000 cameras logged isn't a PR stat, it's the result of ordinary people walking their own neighborhoods and reporting what they find.

The Boulder lawsuit referenced in the video matters just as much as the map itself. Mapping cameras shows the scale of the problem; litigation is what tests whether cities can keep running automated surveillance dragnets without real oversight, consent, or accountability when that data gets misused. Short-form videos like this one help push that fight in front of audiences who've never heard of Flock Safety, and that visibility is worth something.

If this is the first you're hearing about any of this, don't stop at a 60-second clip — go look at the map to see what's logged near you, and check take action for ways to push back locally.