AI cameras are hunting undocumented immigrants #surveillance #flock

Our Take

The Reluctant Accountant's short digs at something we've been warning about for a while: these cameras were sold to city councils as a tool for catching car thieves, not as a backdoor pipeline into federal immigration enforcement. Once a network of plate readers exists, there's no technical wall keeping that data in a local silo. Flock's own marketing touts data-sharing across agencies, and "local only" promises tend to evaporate the moment a federal request shows up.

This is the core problem with mass ALPR deployment — it's not just about who the system was built to catch today, it's about who can query it tomorrow. A camera grid justified for stolen vehicles becomes a surveillance layer that can track anyone, for any reason, including people whose only "crime" is their immigration status. Communities rarely get a real say before these systems go live, and audits of how the data actually gets used are thin to nonexistent.

If you want to see whether your neighborhood already has this infrastructure watching your plate, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a viral video to find out your city sold you out, hit up our take-action guide for ways to push back at the local level.