Why Flock is Dividing America

Our Take

Proton is a company that built its name on privacy, so it's worth paying attention when they turn their lens on Flock Safety. Their video traces the same arc we've been documenting for months: a system sold to city councils as a narrow tool for catching car thieves and Amber Alert suspects, quietly expanded into a de facto national movement-tracking network with almost no public debate about where the data goes or who gets to query it.

The 'dividing America' framing is apt. This isn't a red-state/blue-state issue — it's a trust issue. Small towns that approved a handful of cameras for traffic safety are waking up to find their drivers' movements logged thousands of times a year and shared with agencies far outside their jurisdiction. That's the pattern: incremental approval, zero oversight, and a vendor whose business model depends on more cameras, more data-sharing agreements, and more silence from the communities footing the bill.

We appreciate Proton putting this in front of a wider audience that may have never heard the word 'ALPR' before. If this video is your introduction to Flock, don't stop here — check our camera map to see what's already watching your own neighborhood, and head to our take-action page if you want to push back before the next camera goes up.