Flock Cameras In The Prison Showers?

Our Take

Kevin Is A Human, who runs the surveillance-tracking site panopticonindex.com, picked a title that's meant to make you uncomfortable: "Flock Cameras In The Prison Showers?" We don't know every detail of what's in the video, but the framing hits on something we talk about constantly — once a surveillance tool gets normalized in one context, the argument for expanding it into more invasive settings gets easier to make, not harder. Prisons are already among the most surveilled places in America, and the question of what kind of camera infrastructure gets installed there, by whom, and with what oversight, is exactly the kind of thing that tends to slide through without public debate.

That's the pattern we track with Flock Safety's ALPR network on the outside too: a pitch about solving one narrow problem (stolen cars, be it license plates or otherwise) turns into a sprawling, networked system that law enforcement and now apparently other institutions lean on by default. Few people vote on it, fewer still get to see the data-sharing agreements, and almost nobody gets asked whether the tradeoff is worth it. Videos like this one are useful precisely because they force the question into the open, even when the specifics are murky or disputed.

We'd encourage you to watch Kevin's video and judge the claims for yourself. And if you want to see where this kind of camera infrastructure has already landed in your own neighborhood, check our map — and if you're ready to push back, our take-action page has concrete next steps.