HOW DO FLOCK CAMERAS WORK?

Our Take

Credit to WSB-TV's Channel 2 Action News for getting cameras rolling inside a police department's Flock operation — that kind of access is rare. But let's be clear about what this segment actually is: a law enforcement agency narrating its own surveillance program, with the "safeguards" described entirely on the department's terms. That's useful for understanding how officers say the system works, not for verifying that it actually works that way every time, for every search.

The pattern is familiar. Flock and its police partners love this kind of access-journalism — a friendly walkthrough, a camera at a highway on-ramp, a lieutenant explaining how an alert supposedly only fires on real hits. What's almost never shown is the audit log: who searched what, how often searches stray outside the stated policy, whether out-of-state or federal agencies are quietly pulling local plate data, or how long before a breach or misuse surfaces publicly instead of through a records request. Georgia doesn't require any of that to be proactively disclosed, so a guided tour is often the only look the public gets.

If there's a network of these cameras near you, you deserve to know it exists independent of what a department chooses to show a camera crew. Check our map to see what's already watching your streets, and head to take action if you want to push your city council for real transparency instead of a press tour.