Flock Safety Cameras: New Rules After Major Misuse Scandal
The short version: WFTV Channel 9 reports that a Flock Safety misuse scandal has forced new rules on ALPR access, underscoring how little oversight existed before.
Our Take
WFTV Channel 9's reporting on this misuse scandal is exactly the kind of local accountability journalism this fight needs. When a police department or agency has to scramble to write "new rules" after cameras are already deployed and data already flowing, that tells you the guardrails were an afterthought, not a precondition. Flock Safety's pitch to cities has always been "trust us, it's just for solving crimes" — and stories like this are why that pitch deserves permanent skepticism.
Misuse scandals aren't bugs in the ALPR system, they're a predictable feature of handing a nationwide license-plate tracking network to thousands of separate agencies with wildly different training, oversight, and political incentives. Once that data exists, it gets queried for reasons far beyond the original sales pitch, and the public usually finds out only after a whistleblower, an audit, or a reporter like this one digs it up. "New rules" after the fact is not the same as consent before the fact.
If your town has these cameras and you didn't know it, that's the point — check our map to see what's already watching your streets, and use our take-action guide to push your local officials for real oversight before the next scandal breaks, not after.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WFTV Channel 9, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.