Flock cameras defeated? #flock

Our Take

Matt Moyer, an injury lawyer who's built a following poking at everyday legal and tech questions, poses the kind of headline that gets clicks: can Flock Safety's license plate readers be beaten? We don't know exactly what trick or workaround he's showing in this short — and we're not going to pretend we do — but the framing itself says something important. People are hungry for ways to push back against a camera network that was installed in their towns with little public debate and even less oversight.

Here's the problem with 'defeating' a single camera: Flock's value to police and to the company isn't any one device, it's the network. Thousands of these cameras feed a searchable database of where you drove, when, and how often, shared across agencies and sometimes states. Beating one lens with a trick doesn't touch that infrastructure, and depending on local law, creative workarounds can carry their own legal risk — which is worth remembering before you try anything inspired by a viral video.

The more durable move is knowing where these cameras actually are and organizing locally to demand audits, retention limits, and opt-outs for departments that abuse access. Check our camera map to see what's tracking your routes, and head to take action for steps that actually change policy instead of just one block's traffic cam.