Flock doesn't share data its customers own? And yet it sent data to the Philippines. #GetTheFlockOut
The short version: Chad Marlow highlights Flock's contradiction: it won't share ALPR data because customers 'own' it, yet data reportedly reached the Philippines.
Our Take
Flock Safety has built its sales pitch around a comforting line: your police department owns its license plate data, so Flock itself has no say over who sees it. Chad Marlow's video puts that claim under a microscope, pointing to reporting that Flock data ended up in the Philippines — which is a strange destination for information a company insists it doesn't control.
This isn't just a gotcha moment. It cuts to the core problem with the entire ALPR business model: a private company builds the pipes, writes the contracts, and controls the backend, then disclaims responsibility the moment the data goes somewhere uncomfortable. 'Ownership' starts to look like a legal talking point rather than an operational reality when a for-profit surveillance vendor can move your town's plate scans across an ocean.
Credit to Chad Marlow for pressing on this. If you want to see whether Flock cameras are already logging plates in your neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you want to push back on these systems locally, our take-action page has concrete next steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Chad Marlow, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.