Police Have a Map of Ring Doorbells
The short version: A Switched to Linux roundup shows police mapping every Ring doorbell in town, which is exactly the private-camera-as-public-surveillance-network model Flock is scaling nationwide with license plates.
Our Take
Credit to Switched to Linux for rounding up this week's privacy news, and the Ring doorbell map story is the one that should stop you cold. Police departments building searchable maps of every private camera in a neighborhood, then going door to door (or straight to Amazon) asking for footage, is a preview of exactly what's happening with automated license plate readers. The pattern is identical: normalize a consumer convenience product, quietly turn it into a law enforcement data source, and skip the warrant.
Flock Safety has industrialized this same idea for your car instead of your porch. Instead of asking homeowners nicely for clips, Flock cameras sit on public roads, HOA entrances, and business parking lots, scanning every plate that passes and building a permanent, searchable log of where you drive — no warrant, no notice, no opt-out. A Ring map tells cops which houses might have footage of a specific incident. A Flock network tells them everywhere your car has been for months. One is a lead. The other is a tracking system.
If a map of doorbell cameras feels invasive, take a look at what's already watching your license plate. Check our camera map to see what's been deployed near you, and visit our take-action page for concrete steps to push back at the city council level before this becomes as normalized as the doorbell camera.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Switched to Linux, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.