Flock canceled a critic's hotel after he bought a ticket
The short version: Flock allegedly shut the press out of its own conference and quietly canceled a paying critic's hotel room, a petty move that says more about the company's transparency than any press release could.
Our Take
Credit to Verified Privacy VPN for catching this one on camera. According to their reporting, Flock Safety closed its own industry conference to journalists, and when a $350 ticket-holder who's been critical of the company showed up, his hotel reservation reportedly got pulled without so much as a heads up. He ended up filming the whole situation from the parking lot, which is a pretty fitting metaphor for how Flock treats scrutiny in general: keep it outside, keep it at a distance, and hope nobody asks too many questions.
This matters because Flock isn't some niche vendor — it's the company whose cameras are reading plates on millions of American cars every day, often with zero public hearing and a marketing pitch that insists it's all just about catching the bad guys. A company that can't tolerate a single ticket-holder with a camera and some hard questions is not a company that should be trusted to self-police a nationwide license-plate surveillance network with minimal oversight. If the product and the partnerships were as clean as the sales deck claims, there'd be no reason to disinvite the press or ghost a paying attendee.
Pettiness aside, the bigger story is still the hardware going up in your own town, usually without a public vote. Check our map to see what's already been installed near you, and head to take action if you want to push back before your city signs another contract.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Verified Privacy VPN (vp.net), published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.