Working With Your Community On An ALPR Program
The short version: Flock's own promo video about Redlands, CA plays like a sales reel for 'community buy-in' while skipping the hard questions about data retention, audits, and access.
Our Take
This one comes straight from Flock Safety's marketing team, not an independent journalist, and it shows. The Redlands segment is built to make ALPR adoption look like a warm, collaborative civic process — city officials nodding along, cameras framed as just another tool for public safety. What's missing is any mention of the stuff that actually matters to residents: how long plate data is stored, who can query it, whether it's shared with federal agencies or out-of-state police, and what independent oversight exists once the cameras go up.
"Working with the community" is doing a lot of work in that title. In most Flock rollouts we've tracked, the public engagement happens after a city council has already quietly approved a contract, not before. A polished testimonial video isn't the same as a public audit, a retention-policy hearing, or a chance for residents to say no. If Redlands genuinely had that kind of open process, great — but a company highlight reel isn't proof of it.
Credit to Flock for producing a slick piece, but skepticism is the right response to any surveillance vendor narrating its own success story. Check our camera map to see if Flock has already landed in your town, and if it has, use our take-action guide to push for the transparency this video conveniently leaves out.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Flock, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.