License Plate Readers & Privacy Concerns #shorts
The short version: Across The Streets highlights a new law barring Flock ALPR data from immigration or abortion investigations — but paper restrictions only work if someone's watching.
Our Take
Credit to Across The Streets for flagging something we harp on constantly: a law that says 'you can't use this data for X' is only as good as the audit trail behind it. Flock's pitch has always been that local police keep control of their own cameras, but the second that data crosses state lines or gets pulled into a multi-agency search, 'local control' becomes a polite fiction. A statute banning immigration or abortion-related queries is a good start — it means nothing without logging, transparency, and real penalties that actually get enforced when someone breaks the rule.
The bigger issue the video gestures at is out-of-state and federal access. Flock's network lets agencies query cameras far outside their jurisdiction, which is exactly how a car flagged in one state ends up in the hands of investigators in another with completely different laws — and completely different intentions. A carve-out law in one state doesn't stop a federal agent or an out-of-state department from running the same plate through a network node that isn't bound by that law at all.
If your town has these cameras, you deserve to know who's allowed to search them, for what, and who's checking. Look up your area on our camera map and see what's already watching your street, then hit take action to push your local council for real audit logs and public reporting — not just a press release promising good behavior.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Across The Streets, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.