Debate over use of Flock cameras expands nationwide

Our Take

Credit to KAAL TV's ABC 6 News for putting a number on what a lot of Midwestern drivers probably don't realize: over 1,000 license plate readers now blanket Minnesota and Iowa, and Flock Safety owns most of them. This is the same story we've documented city by city across the country — a company that started by pitching itself to homeowners' associations has quietly become a de facto regional surveillance backbone, with little public debate before the cameras go up.

What makes this coverage notable is the word "expands." Flock's model depends on network effects — the more jurisdictions that sign on, the more valuable the shared data pool becomes for tracking vehicle movement across county and state lines, regardless of whether any single town ever holds a real public vote on it. Once that infrastructure is normalized, rolling it back gets exponentially harder, which is exactly why local pushback matters now, not after the thousandth camera goes live.

If you're in Minnesota, Iowa, or anywhere else wondering whether your daily commute is being logged, check our camera map to see what's already there, and visit our take-action page for concrete steps to raise this with your city council before the debate KAAL is covering shows up at your own city limits.