Flock Cameras: Who's Actually Watching You?

Our Take

Trey Evans' video puts a finger on the question that keeps getting brushed aside in city council meetings: it's not just that Flock Safety cameras exist on your street, it's who has the keys to the data once it's collected. Police departments love to talk about "solving crimes," but the audit trails, the data-sharing agreements with other agencies, and the sheer number of people with login access rarely get the same airtime.

That gap between what's promised and what's actually auditable is the whole ballgame. Flock's network lets agencies share plate reads across state lines, and once that data is logged, it can sit around for weeks, get pulled into unrelated investigations, or end up in the hands of agencies with very different missions than the one that installed the camera. "Who's watching you" isn't rhetorical — it's a real list of usernames, and most residents never see it.

Credit to Trey Evans for keeping this conversation in front of a wider audience. If you want to see how many of these cameras are already running in your own zip code, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back at a council meeting or public records request, our take-action resources can help you get started.