Flock cameras in Angels Camp raise privacy concerns

Our Take

Credit to KCRA 3 for getting Angels Camp Police Chief Steve Poortinga on record. His answer to residents' privacy concerns boils down to "this is new technology, trust us" — which isn't an answer, it's a deflection. Flock's own marketing brags about capturing bumper stickers and dents, meaning these systems are building detailed visual profiles of every car that passes, not just running plates against a hot list. That's a massive expansion of surveillance capability dressed up as a routine traffic camera.

What's telling here is the sequence: cameras went live last May, and the department only posted about them on Facebook after residents started asking questions. That's not transparency, that's damage control. A small mountain town like Angels Camp is exactly the kind of place where Flock reps pitch these systems as a cheap force multiplier, banking on the fact that local city councils rarely ask about data retention policies, who else can query the system, or whether it's networked into a statewide or national lookup web.

Every one of these local news stories follows the same script: quiet install, public backlash, police insisting it's for public safety. The cameras don't go away just because a story airs — it takes sustained pressure from residents at council meetings and public records requests. Check our camera map to see if Angels Camp or your own town is already logged, and use our take-action guide to push back before these systems become permanent fixtures nobody remembers approving.