Florida Flock cameras: How Uthmeier, law enforcement are responding

Our Take

When a state DOT tells police their license plate readers have to come down within 30 days, that's not a minor bureaucratic hiccup — it's an admission that these cameras were planted on public rights of way without anyone asking hard questions first. FOX 13 Tampa Bay's coverage of Florida AG Uthmeier and local law enforcement scrambling to respond shows exactly how fragile the legal footing for mass ALPR deployment really is once someone actually looks at the fine print.

Watch for the spin in how agencies frame this: expect talk of "public safety" and "solving crimes" while the actual issue — unregulated camera networks tracking every driver's movements without a warrant, built by a private company with murky data-sharing practices — gets glossed over. A removal order from FDOT doesn't mean the surveillance stops; it just means Flock and its police partners have to find a new legal theory or a new pole to bolt the camera to.

This is exactly why tracking where these cameras actually sit matters. Check our map to see what's been documented near you, and if you want to push back on your local agency's Flock contract, our take action page has the tools to get started.