Are FLOCK cameras flooding neighbourhoods SPYING on you?

Our Take

Neal K. Shah is putting a plain-language spotlight on something we've been tracking for a while: those unassuming black-and-gray poles sprouting on street corners aren't traffic cameras or speed cams — they're Flock Safety ALPRs, and they're building a permanent record of where your car goes, whether or not you've ever been suspected of a crime. The fact that a channel outside the usual privacy/policy circuit is picking this up matters. It means the conversation is leaking out of activist forums and into living rooms where people are just now noticing the hardware bolted near their mailbox.

The core problem the video gestures at is the one we keep coming back to: this is mass data collection sold to city councils as a narrow public-safety tool, with little public debate about retention windows, who can query the data, or how easily it gets shared across agencies and states. A camera that logs your plate every time you drive to work, church, a clinic, or a protest isn't 'solving crime' in any targeted sense — it's dragnet surveillance with a friendly logo.

If this video made you look twice at the poles in your own neighborhood, don't stop there. Check our map to see what's already been documented near you, and head to take action for concrete steps — public records requests, council meeting scripts, and more — to push back on unchecked ALPR expansion in your town.