Flock cameras spark renewed debate and confusion in Santee

Our Take

Credit to ABC 10 News for surfacing something we hear constantly: most people genuinely don't know which poles on their street are reading license plates. That's not an accident. Flock cameras are designed to blend into the streetscape, and cities rarely do the public education work needed to explain what's actually being logged every time you drive to the grocery store. Confusion isn't a side effect of this rollout — it's practically the business model.

Santee's "mixed feelings" are the same ones showing up in city council chambers across the country: people want to feel safer, but they're being asked to trust a system with almost no transparency about retention, sharing, or misuse. A camera that quietly logs every car on a block, cross-references it against networks run by other agencies, and keeps that data for weeks is a fundamentally different thing than a traditional security camera, and most residents aren't being told that distinction before the vote happens.

If you're in Santee or anywhere else wondering what's actually watching your street, check our camera map to see documented ALPR locations near you, and visit our take-action page for tools to push back at your next city council meeting.