Flock Cameras: Safety Tool or Privacy Risk?

Our Take

Credit to Tech Rage IT for getting local news cameras pointed at the right subject: the cameras that are already pointed at all of us. When a tech-focused creator gets pulled into a FOX 35 Orlando segment on Flock Safety, it's a sign this conversation is leaking out of privacy circles and into mainstream local news, which is exactly where it needs to be. Central Florida has been quietly blanketed with ALPR nodes, and most residents driving past them have no idea their plate, location, and timestamp just got logged into a searchable database.

The "safety tool or privacy risk" framing is the right question, but it's worth pushing further than a binary. These systems can do both at once — they can occasionally help solve a crime and still represent a massive, largely unaccountable surveillance buildout with weak audit trails, vague retention policies, and a growing list of documented misuse cases nationwide. Treating that as a simple toggle between "safe" and "private" lets vendors and police departments off the hook for answering harder questions: who can query this data, how long is it kept, and what happens when it's wrong.

If you're in Central Florida or anywhere else wondering whether you're already being tracked, check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and head to our take-action page for concrete steps — public records requests, city council scripts, and more — to push back on unchecked ALPR expansion in your community.