Flock CEO calls camera mappers terroristic

Our Take

Credit to Verified Privacy VPN (vp.net) for surfacing this clip from Flock's own livestream. If the CEO of the country's dominant ALPR vendor is reaching for the word "terroristic" to describe people who photograph and log publicly visible cameras, that tells you more about the company's anxiety than about the volunteers doing the mapping. Standing on a public sidewalk and noting where a government-linked surveillance device sits is not terrorism — it's basic civic transparency, the same instinct that built sunshine laws and open-records requests.

This kind of rhetoric matters because it's a preview of the playbook: frame scrutiny as a threat, and maybe lawmakers or platforms start treating documentation itself as suspect. That's exactly backward. The public has a right to know where automated plate readers are watching, who's operating them, and how the data gets shared — especially as networks like Flock's expand into more towns with little public debate. Volunteer mapping is one of the few checks ordinary people have on a system that otherwise operates in the dark.

Verified Privacy VPN is opening a National Week of Action Against ALPRs on Aug 15, which is worth watching. In the meantime, see what's been documented near you on our camera map, and if you want to push back on unchecked ALPR deployment in your own community, check our take-action resources.