Flock cameras in HOA communities in St. Johns County

Our Take

Credit to News4JAX for surfacing a wrinkle that gets lost in most Flock coverage: not every camera bolted to a pole belongs to the police. In St. Johns County, Sheriff Rob Hardwick told a budget hearing that HOA-owned Flock cameras aren't under his department's control — which sounds like a disclaimer, but it's actually the scary part. These cameras still scan every plate that rolls through a neighborhood, still build a searchable log of who came and went, and still can end up shared with law enforcement or plugged into Flock's national network. The difference is there's no sheriff, no elected official, and often no public meeting governing how that data gets used, stored, or handed over.

HOAs are private associations answering to boards, not voters. When they buy surveillance infrastructure, residents typically don't get a say, and there's rarely a policy on retention limits, audits, or who can query the footage. That's the pattern with Flock generally — a for-profit vendor selling government-grade tracking to whoever can write a check, then leaning on "local control" to dodge accountability when things go sideways. A homeowner's board authorizing dragnet plate tracking for a subdivision is no less consequential than a police department doing it; it's just harder to challenge with a public records request or a city council vote.

If you live in a gated community or HOA that's quietly added ALPR cameras, that's exactly the kind of deployment we want mapped and on the record. Check the map to see what's already documented near you, and if you want to push back on unaccountable surveillance creeping into private developments, our take-action page has steps for raising it at your next HOA meeting or with local officials.