Flock Safety and Chinese
The short version: Tasha Teeling raises questions about Chinese-made components in Flock Safety's ALPR hardware, spotlighting supply-chain risk on top of existing privacy concerns.
Our Take
Tasha Teeling's video pokes at a question that doesn't get asked enough: who actually builds the boxes bolted to our streetlights, and what does that mean once they're plugged into a nationwide license-plate database? Whether the components trace back to Chinese manufacturers or not, the underlying point stands — these cameras aren't just a local-police tool, they're a hardware and data pipeline, and most of us have no idea who has access at any point along that chain.
That's the real story with Flock Safety and networks like it. It's not only about whether a single police department can be trusted with your travel history — it's about every vendor, subcontractor, and cloud server that touches the data once it's collected. Mass surveillance infrastructure doesn't stay local, and supply-chain opacity is just one more reason to be skeptical of systems that scan every plate, every driver, every day, regardless of suspicion.
We appreciate Tasha Teeling for pushing this conversation into the open. If you want to see how close this infrastructure is to your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back, our take-action page has concrete steps for getting involved locally.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Tasha Teeling, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.