Flock Cameras & Data Centers: Any Concerns?

Our Take

Tom Deweese of the American Policy Center isn't a name you'd typically see in our orbit, but that's exactly the point — when a longtime free-market, limited-government advocate starts asking hard questions about Flock Safety cameras and the data centers storing all that license plate information, it's a sign this issue has broken out of its partisan box. Credit to VCY TV for putting a spotlight on how ALPR networks aren't just a left-right talking point; they're a structural threat to anyone who values privacy, regardless of ideology.

The data center angle matters more than people realize. It's easy to focus on the cameras themselves, bolted to poles around your neighborhood, but the real danger is downstream: where does all that location data live, who has access to it, how long is it retained, and what happens when it's pooled across thousands of jurisdictions into a de facto national tracking system. Flock has built exactly that kind of searchable, cross-agency database, and once your travel patterns are sitting in someone else's server farm, you've lost control of them for good — no warrant, no court order, no public vote required.

This is why we keep pushing people to check our camera map to see what's already watching their own streets, and to use our take-action resources if they want to push back at a city council meeting. Liberty advocates on the right and privacy advocates on the left are converging on the same conclusion: mass surveillance infrastructure doesn't ask your politics before it logs your plate.