How I stopped flock safety with public records
The short version: A creator used public records requests to push back on a local Flock Safety deployment, showing transparency law can be a real check on ALPR sprawl.
Our Take
Public records requests are one of the few tools regular people have to pull back the curtain on how cities quietly roll out ALPR networks. The Unraveling's breakdown of how they used records requests to challenge a Flock Safety deployment is exactly the kind of grassroots pressure that keeps local governments honest about contracts, data-sharing agreements, and vendor promises that rarely survive public scrutiny.
This matters because most Flock installations happen with minimal public input — a council vote buried on a consent agenda, a press release about 'reducing crime,' and cameras going up before residents even know the contract terms. Records requests expose the fine print: who has access to the data, how long it's retained, and whether local agencies are quietly feeding information to federal databases.
If you want to see what's already been deployed near you, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back the way this creator did, our take action page has templates and guidance for filing your own records requests. Credit to The Unraveling for showing that transparency law, used well, can actually slow the surveillance creep.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of The Unraveling | Yersocialistdad, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.