Would You Give Up Privacy to Solve More Crimes?
The short version: Ema Roloff's video poses ALPRs as a privacy-for-crime-solving trade-off, but that framing ignores how little oversight or consent actually exists.
Our Take
Ema Roloff's video asks a fair question on its face: would you trade some privacy to solve more crimes? But that framing assumes we're being asked. In most towns, nobody voted on Flock Safety cameras going up at every major intersection, and nobody gets to opt out of having their plate, location, and travel patterns logged dozens of times a day. The "trade-off" isn't a trade at all when one side never got a say.
The bigger issue the video gestures at but doesn't fully unpack is scale. A single ALPR solving a hit-and-run is one thing. A statewide, interconnected network of cameras run by a private company, feeding data to thousands of agencies with minimal audit trails, is another. That's the system Flock has built, and it's the system that turns "helping solve crimes" into a permanent record of everywhere you drive, whether you're a suspect or not.
Credit to Ema Roloff for putting the question to a general audience instead of burying it in policy jargon — that's exactly the kind of conversation more people need to have before these systems become invisible infrastructure. If you want to see how far that infrastructure has already spread near you, check out our camera map, and if you're ready to push back, our take-action page has next steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Ema Roloff, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.