My city installed license plate readers on every major intersection and anyone

Our Take

Credit to Jessie Gutierrez for putting a finger on something a lot of residents only notice after the fact: one day there's a camera on a pole at the corner, and suddenly every car that passes through town is logged, time-stamped, and stored. The format is a quick, funny short, but the underlying observation isn't a joke — blanket license plate reader coverage at "every major intersection" means a permanent, searchable record of where you drove, when, and how often, whether or not you're suspected of anything.

That's the core problem with Flock Safety and similar ALPR networks: they're sold city by city, intersection by intersection, usually with little public debate, until the patchwork adds up to near-total tracking of a community's movements. Most residents, like the creator here, find out it's everywhere only after it's already built. We think that's backwards — these systems should be approved, audited, and limited publicly before they go up, not discovered after the fact.

If you're wondering whether your own city is wired up like this, check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and visit our take-action page for ways to push back on unchecked expansion.