Cheyenne residents push back against Flock cameras amid growing privacy concerns

Our Take

Credit to Your Wyoming Link for doing the basic journalism that too few local outlets bother with: pointing a camera at the cameras and asking Cheyenne residents how they feel about driving past automated license plate readers they never voted on and often never noticed. That reaction — surprise followed by unease — is the same one we hear from drivers in every city where Flock Safety quietly rolls out its network, usually sold to a city council in a single afternoon with a vendor slideshow and no public debate about retention periods, data sharing, or who else gets to query the system.

Wyoming isn't exempt from the bigger pattern. Flock's pitch is always the same: a few cameras to help solve the occasional stolen car or hit-and-run. What residents aren't always told is that these units log every passing plate, time-stamped and location-stamped, building a searchable travel history of anyone who drives through town — regardless of suspicion. That data can be pooled across jurisdictions, shared with federal agencies, and kept far longer than most people assume, turning a 'public safety tool' into a de facto tracking grid for the whole community.

If you're in Cheyenne or anywhere else wondering whether these cameras have already shown up on your route, check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and visit our take-action page for concrete steps — public records requests, city council talking points, and more — to push your local government for transparency before the network grows any further.