FLOCK IT PROMO

Our Take

Spartan Apps' promo for its "Flock It" app is a small but telling sign of the times: when a surveillance company blankets neighborhoods with automated license-plate readers, people start building their own tools to keep tabs on them. Whatever the app ends up offering, the impulse behind it says a lot — citizens are no longer willing to just trust that these cameras are where they're told they are, or that they're only used the way Flock Safety claims.

That's the real story here. Flock's ALPR network has expanded so fast, with so little public input in many towns, that grassroots developers and hobbyists are stepping in to fill the transparency gap local governments and police departments haven't bothered to close. Whether an app like this holds up over time matters less than the fact that it exists at all — it's a symptom of a surveillance system that was deployed faster than the oversight needed to keep it accountable.

If you want a more thorough, crowdsourced look at where these cameras actually are, check our map, and if you're ready to push back on ALPR expansion in your own community, our take-action page has the tools to get started. Credit to Spartan Apps for putting a spotlight on the problem, even if the fix ultimately has to come from policy, not apps.