Flock Safety's Network Used to Track Abortion Suspect Across 83K Cameras

Our Take

The video from Flock Off lays out something we've been warning about since we started tracking this network: state lines mean nothing to a system built for nationwide lookback. When a single search can pull hits across 83,000 cameras spanning dozens of states, the old assumption that "my state has good privacy laws" stops mattering. Your plate doesn't stop at the border, and neither does the data.

This case matters because it's not hypothetical. Post-Roe, abortion access has become a patchwork of criminal and civil liability depending on which side of a line you're standing on, and ALPR networks like Flock's don't respect that patchwork — they erase it. A person driving from a restrictive state to a permissive one can be reconstructed turn by turn, camera by camera, without a warrant, without notice, and often without any local law enforcement even knowing the search originated somewhere else entirely. That's the design, not a bug.

Credit to Flock Off for pulling the curtain back on how these cross-jurisdictional searches actually work in practice. If you want to see how saturated your own area is, check our map, and if you're ready to push back on this kind of surveillance infrastructure, our take-action page has concrete next steps.