Miniaturization of Surveillance Cameras | Josh Frankel
The short version: Scarsdale never installed its Flock ALPR network, yet the village is still fighting to keep the planned camera locations secret, raising bigger questions about surveillance transparency.
Our Take
Josh Frankel's fight with Scarsdale, New York is a case study in how surveillance creep works even when the cameras never go up. The village scrapped its Flock Safety ALPR plan, but officials are still stonewalling a resident who simply wants to know where those cameras were slated to go. If a government won't disclose plans for a project that died on the drawing board, what does that say about how it'll handle records once a system is actually live and sucking up plate data?
Jen & Friends Podcast and Josh Frankel deserve credit for pulling this thread. The miniaturization angle matters too — as ALPR hardware shrinks, it gets easier to tuck cameras into corners nobody notices, which makes public mapping and disclosure fights like this one even more essential. Secrecy at the proposal stage is a preview of secrecy at the operational stage.
This is exactly why independent documentation matters. Check our camera map to see what's already been confirmed in your area, and if your town is being cagey about its own ALPR plans, use our take-action resources to start pushing back before the cameras — visible or not — go live.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Jen's Two Cents. | Jen & Friends Podcast, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.