Police using stingrays for phone base surveillance

Our Take

The video itself is light on documentation — no agency named, no court records cited, just a title pointing at stingrays, the suitcase-sized devices police use to trick nearby phones into connecting to a fake cell tower so investigators can sweep up location data and, in some configurations, call metadata. We can't verify specifics from a clip this thin, but the underlying technology is well documented elsewhere and worth taking seriously.

Stingrays and Flock Safety's ALPR network come from the same playbook: deploy a tool quietly, avoid public debate, and let convenience with prosecutors do the talking. A stingray doesn't care if you're a suspect — it grabs data from every phone in range. Flock's cameras work the same way, logging every plate that passes, not just the ones on a warrant. Neither system was built with meaningful public input, and both keep expanding because most people don't know they exist until a lawsuit or leak forces the issue.

That's exactly the blind spot we track. If a stingray can vacuum up your phone's location without you knowing, you should at least know when a camera is logging your plate. Check our map to see what's near you, and hit take action if you want to push back on either kind of surveillance in your town.