Oakland Cops Disabled Stolen Car Cameras After 1 Million Alerts Overwhelmed Them

Our Take

Credit to News For Reasonable People for digging into what happens after the ribbon-cutting ceremony ends and the sales pitch meets reality. Oakland didn't deactivate its Flock Safety stolen-car alerts because of a privacy epiphany — they turned them off because the system generated roughly a million alerts and drowned officers in noise. That's the quiet part of automated surveillance nobody puts on the brochure: these networks don't just watch you, they produce mountains of data that somebody has to act on, verify, or ignore.

This matters because it undercuts the entire 'force multiplier' sales pitch that cities get sold on. Flock markets itself as a tool that lets fewer officers do more, but when the alert volume becomes unmanageable, agencies either hire more staff to process hits, or they quietly switch features off and keep the cameras running anyway — meaning the mass data collection continues even after the supposed public-safety justification collapses. Oakland residents are still having their plates logged and tracked, just with one less excuse attached to it.

If your town is weighing a Flock contract — or already has one running with little public accountability — this is exactly the kind of story to bring to a city council meeting. Check our camera map to see what's already deployed near you, and hit up our take-action page for tools to push back before your city signs a multi-year deal it can't walk back.