Flock & Trust between Communities and Local Agencies

Our Take

Credit to Jen's Two Cents for actually unpacking Flock Safety's January 15 X post instead of just sharing it. When a surveillance company tells you the backlash is really a 'trust' problem, that's corporate speak for 'we'd like you to stop asking hard questions.' Trust isn't built by a press release insisting your cameras only collect 'objective vehicle data' — it's built by independent audits, public retention policies, and real consequences when agencies misuse the system. Flock has offered none of those things voluntarily; it's taken lawsuits, public records requests, and local pushback to get even partial answers.

The 'we don't capture faces' line is a classic deflection. Nobody's main fear is facial recognition — it's that a network of cameras logging every plate, every direction of travel, every timestamp, shared across thousands of agencies and sometimes federal partners, builds a movement history on ordinary people who've done nothing wrong. That's not an abstract 'Big Brother' metaphor, it's just what the technology does by design. Calling that objective data doesn't make the dragnet less real.

If your town is quietly running these cameras, you deserve to know where and why. Check our camera map to see what's near you, and use our take-action page to push your local council for transparency Flock won't offer on its own.