Flock Surveillance Has a Hidden Weakness

Our Take

Credit to Marcel over at It's all Grady for digging into something most of us never think about: the infrared glow that powers a lot of these "invisible" surveillance cameras at night. His video walks through how he stumbled onto this by accident while testing home security gear, then applied it to spotting Flock units and drones in the wild — finding that some consumer cameras (like certain Reolink models) pick up IR light that others (like Arlo) filter out, and that night vision goggles can extend that range even further.

This is a neat piece of citizen detective work, but it's worth being clear-eyed about what it does and doesn't change. Knowing an IR-equipped camera is active doesn't stop it from reading your plate or logging your location in a database that police departments and, increasingly, federal agencies can query. It's situational awareness, not protection. Still, in a surveillance landscape built on being unseen and unaccountable, any technique that lets ordinary people notice these systems is worth knowing — it's the same instinct that drives us to keep mapping known Flock camera locations so people can see what's actually watching their streets.

The bigger takeaway from Marcel's video isn't the IR trick itself — it's the reminder that this technology is designed to operate without your knowledge or consent, and that most workarounds are partial at best. If you want to do something more durable than spotting a glow in a night-vision lens, check out our take action page for ways to push back on ALPR expansion in your own community.