We Tracked Ourselves with Exposed Flock Cameras

Our Take

This is the nightmare scenario critics have been shouting about since Flock Safety started bolting cameras to every intersection in America: the surveillance infrastructure isn't just watching you, it's leaky. 404 Media's Jason Koebler didn't have to speculate about what's possible with this network — he found exposed camera feeds and used them to trace his own footsteps, down to the level of detail that should make anyone's skin crawl. Cameras that can zoom in close enough to read a phone screen aren't just logging plates anymore. That's a different category of surveillance entirely, and it's happening with little public debate about whether communities actually consented to that level of scrutiny.

Flock has spent years selling itself to police departments and HOAs as a turnkey public-safety fix, but 'turnkey' cuts both ways — it also means turnkey exposure when the security isn't locked down. A private company amassing this much location and visual data on ordinary people, then failing to secure it, is exactly the failure mode privacy advocates have warned about. It's not hypothetical anymore. Credit to Koebler and the 404 Media team for doing the legwork and proving the risk instead of just theorizing about it.

If you want to know whether one of these cameras is sitting on your street, check our map — and if you'd rather your town not be part of this experiment, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back at the local level.