Are Flock Security Cameras Tracking You?

Our Take

Credit to Elite Drive Mindset for putting a number on something most drivers never think about: 20 billion license plate scans a month. That figure alone should stop you in your tracks. This isn't a handful of cop cars running radar — it's a distributed, always-on camera network quietly cataloging where you drive, when, and how often, often without a warrant or even local public debate before installation.

The unsettling part isn't just the scale, it's the normalization. Flock cameras get pitched to city councils as a quiet crime-fighting tool, but the data doesn't stay local — it feeds into a nationwide lookup system that police departments across state lines can query. That's a de facto national tracking database built with almost no federal oversight, funded by your own municipality's budget.

If a video like this makes you wonder whether one of these cameras is sitting on your commute, it probably is. Check our camera map to see what's been documented near you, and if you want to push back locally, our take-action guide has concrete steps for getting answers from your city council.