MET Police and PALANTIR
The short version: A UK-focused video on the Met Police's Palantir ties is a reminder that data-fusion platforms, not just individual cameras, are what turn scattered surveillance into a real-time tracking grid.
Our Take
The channel Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency digs into the Metropolitan Police's relationship with Palantir, the data-analytics firm notorious for stitching together disparate government and law enforcement datasets into one searchable system. It's a UK story, but the underlying mechanics should sound familiar to anyone tracking Flock Safety's rollout across American towns: the real danger isn't any single camera or database, it's what happens when agencies plug everything into a platform built to connect faces, plates, locations, and timestamps into a single profile on demand.
Flock's pitch to US police departments follows the same logic — centralize ALPR hits in the cloud, let departments share networks across jurisdictions, and make the data searchable far beyond the original 'stolen vehicle' justification. Once that infrastructure exists, mission creep is not hypothetical, it's the default. The UK's experience with Palantir-style integration is a preview of where unchecked ALPR expansion leads here if communities don't push back now.
If you want to see how dense this is getting in your own area, check our camera map, and if you're ready to do something about it, our take-action page has concrete steps for pressuring local officials on transparency and retention limits.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.