Columbus Residents Question Flock Camera Security at Town Hall
The short version: Columbus, Georgia residents pressed Rep. Kathy Cook at a town hall on who can access Flock camera data and how secure it really is, and that question deserves answers everywhere.
Our Take
Credit to WRBL News 3 for capturing something that doesn't happen often enough: a sitting lawmaker fielding live, pointed questions about ALPR surveillance in a public forum. At Kathy Cook's town hall in Columbus, residents reportedly pushed on the security of Flock camera systems — who can log in, what gets stored, and what stops that data from leaking or being misused. These are exactly the right questions, and the fact that constituents are the ones asking them, rather than waiting for a breach to force the issue, is a good sign.
Flock Safety markets its network as a low-friction public safety tool, but "low-friction" cuts both ways — it's also low-friction for scope creep, for data sharing agreements nobody voted on, and for third parties who gain access through murky partnerships. Security isn't just about hackers; it's about who inside and outside the system can query your movements without a warrant. Columbus residents are right to demand transparency before these networks expand further, not after.
If you want to see whether your own neighborhood is already wired into this system, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for a town hall to ask questions, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back locally.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WRBL News 3, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.