Should cities tell you where surveillance cameras are located?

Our Take

Credit to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for asking the question most city halls hope nobody does: if you're going to blanket a city in license plate readers, shouldn't the public at least know where they are? Atlanta reportedly has more cameras per capita than any other American city, yet refuses to publish a map of them. That's not a technical oversight — it's a policy choice, and it's one that keeps residents, journalists, and civil liberties groups from independently checking whether the system is doing what police claim it does.

The 'secrecy helps us catch bad guys' argument doesn't hold up well against the counterexamples in this video. Lexington, Kentucky and Washington, D.C. both disclose their camera locations and haven't seen their departments collapse into crime-ridden chaos as a result. Transparency and effective policing aren't mutually exclusive — what secrecy actually protects is the agency and vendor from scrutiny over placement decisions, data sharing, and whether the network quietly tracks everyone, not just 'habitual offenders.'

This is exactly why crowdsourced mapping projects matter: when cities won't disclose camera locations, the public has to do the work itself. Check our map to see what's been documented in your area, and if you want to push back on unchecked camera expansion, our take-action resources can help you start.