How Private Is Your Information With Flock Cameras? 👀
The short version: A local news segment lets a Rock Falls police chief explain Flock ALPR privacy, but the real story is who else can tap that data beyond one department's walls.
Our Take
The Radar Free Press did what most local outlets don't bother to do: it asked a police chief, on camera, to explain what Flock's license plate readers actually capture and who gets to see it. Credit to them for that. But a single chief's reassurance only covers one department's policy on one day — it says nothing about the thousands of other agencies that can query the same network, the vendor's own access, or how long your travel history sits in a database waiting for a subpoena, a data breach, or a curious employee.
That's the structural problem with Flock's model. Every camera is a node in a nationwide system, and "trust us, we have rules" is not the same as independent audit, public reporting, or a mechanism for you to know if your plate was searched. Chiefs change, policies change, and partnerships with federal agencies have already shown how local promises get quietly overridden. A friendly interview is a start, not an answer.
If Rock Falls has these cameras, chances are your town does too — check our camera map to see what's already watching your streets, and use our take-action guide to push your city council for real transparency instead of a press-release-style Q&A.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of The Radar Free Press, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.