Invisible license plate hack

Our Take

Credit to _vector_ for putting a spotlight, even in a quick shorts format, on the cat-and-mouse game people are playing with automated license plate readers. Videos like this tend to go viral because they tap into a real anxiety: cameras are quietly logging where you drive, when, and how often, often without your consent or even your knowledge that a Flock Safety camera is bolted to that utility pole.

We'd caution readers not to treat any single 'hack' as a silver bullet. Legality varies by state, effectiveness against different camera models is inconsistent, and Flock and its law enforcement partners are constantly tuning their systems to catch evasion attempts. A trick that blinds one camera today can be flagged as suspicious activity tomorrow, and in some jurisdictions tampering with a plate's visibility is itself a citable offense. Relying on gadgets also lets the underlying problem off the hook: a nationwide, largely unregulated network quietly building location histories on ordinary drivers.

The more durable fight is political, not technical. Find out if these cameras are already in your neighborhood on our camera map, and if you want to push back on the policy that lets this surveillance expand unchecked, start with our take-action resources.