Florida orders removal of Flock cameras

Our Take

KRCG 13 reports that the Florida Department of Transportation has told agencies to stop mounting Flock Safety cameras along state roads, a reminder that a lot of this infrastructure got bolted up without anyone checking whether the agency doing the bolting actually had the authority to do it. Flock's whole pitch to police departments has been speed and convenience: skip the procurement headaches, skip the public hearings, just put a camera on a pole. Florida DOT drawing a line on its own right-of-way is a small but real check on that momentum.

Don't mistake this for a privacy win just yet. A removal order over jurisdictional authority is not the same as a judgment that mass license plate tracking is a problem. The cameras can come right back once the paperwork is sorted out, or simply move to a pole a few feet away that falls under different control. What matters is that it shows these networks are not as untouchable as Flock and its police partners like to suggest — local and state officials still have leverage if they choose to use it.

If you're in Florida or anywhere else, check our map to see what's already been installed near you, and visit our take-action page for ways to push your own city or state to answer the same jurisdiction and oversight questions FDOT just raised. Credit to KRCG 13 for flagging this one.