Watching the Watchers - Flock worker calls 911 on reporter filming
The short version: A Flock Safety contractor called 911 on a Toledo reporter for filming in public, underscoring how touchy this industry gets about its own transparency.
Our Take
There's a rich irony in a company that built its entire business on watching you from a pole getting spooked when a reporter points a camera back. WTVG 13's crew in Toledo did exactly what journalists are supposed to do — show up, film in public, ask questions — and apparently that was enough to get a Flock worker on the phone with 911. Credit to 13 Action News for airing it instead of quietly letting it go.
This is the pattern we see over and over with ALPR deployments: companies and the police departments that lease their hardware love to talk about 'public safety' and 'transparency' until an actual member of the public shows up to look at the equipment. Filming a camera on a public right-of-way isn't a crime, and treating it like one sends a pretty clear message about how these operators actually feel about accountability. If a vendor's first instinct is to summon police rather than answer a question, that tells you something about the confidence they have in their own practices.
These moments matter because Flock's network only works if nobody pushes back — not city councils, not journalists, not neighbors. Check our camera map to see what's been installed near you, and if you think your city needs a serious conversation about these contracts, our take-action page has concrete steps for getting it on the agenda.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WTVG 13 Action News | Toledo, OH, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.