Flock AI camera debate spreads across North America - including Canada

Our Take

Spencer Kanaka's video is a useful reminder that this debate doesn't stop at the border. Flock Safety has spent years normalizing automated license plate readers in American towns by selling them as a quiet, low-cost crime-fighting tool. Now the same pitch, and the same pushback, is showing up in Canadian communities. That should tell you something: this was never really about one police department's local needs. It's a business model built on blanketing roads with cameras and leasing access to the data, and it scales wherever elected officials don't ask hard questions.

What's encouraging is that the public conversation is catching up. As more people learn that these cameras log every passing vehicle, regardless of suspicion, and that the data can be shared across agencies and jurisdictions with little transparency, the skepticism grows. That's happening in Canada now too, which means the surveillance industry can't count on one country's apathy to protect its expansion plans elsewhere.

If you want to see how far this network already reaches near you, check our camera map, and if your town is considering a Flock contract, our take-action resources walk you through how to push back before the cameras go up.