100+ ALPR Cameras Are Tracking Madison County. Did Anyone Ask You?

Our Take

Credit to Brett Jones for putting a number on what so many residents only sense in the abstract: over 100 license plate readers quietly blanketing Madison County. The framing in the title says it all — "Did Anyone Ask You?" That question is the whole ballgame. Flock Safety and similar vendors routinely pitch these systems directly to police departments and county commissions, skipping the town halls, the public comment periods, and the basic transparency that a dragnet surveillance network covering an entire community ought to require.

Jones threads a needle a lot of politicians won't touch: supporting law enforcement's mission while refusing to rubber-stamp a tool that logs every driver's movements by default, whether or not they're suspected of anything. That's not an anti-cop position, it's a pro-accountability one. Mass ALPR deployment changes the relationship between citizens and their government even when it's sold as just "catching bad guys" — because the data on everyone else gets collected too, often stored far longer than most residents would guess, and shared well beyond the county line.

If you're in Madison County or anywhere else wondering how many of these cameras are already watching your commute, check our camera map to see what's been documented near you. And if you want to push back the way Jones is doing — publicly, before the vote, not after the contract's signed — our take-action resources walk through how to raise these questions with your own local officials.