Cameras don’t make us safe! Real community policing does! #flock #masssurveillance #police #safety
The short version: A creator called 'You Awake Yet?' argues Flock cameras are theater, not safety, and that real community policing builds the trust surveillance never will.
Our Take
"You Awake Yet?" is hitting on something we hammer on constantly at DeFlock: the pitch for ALPR networks like Flock Safety always assumes more cameras equals more safety, but that equation has never been proven. What gets proven, repeatedly, is that these systems hoover up the movements of every driver — innocent or not — and hand that data to police departments, and sometimes federal agencies, with little transparency and almost no community input.
Real community policing, the kind this video is calling for, relies on relationships, trust, and accountability between officers and the neighborhoods they serve. Flock's model does the opposite — it outsources public safety to a black box of license plate scans and lets departments point to a dashboard instead of doing the actual work of building trust. That's a trade a lot of city councils are making without ever asking residents if they want their daily commute logged and stored.
We appreciate creators like this one pushing back on the 'just trust the algorithm' narrative. If you want to see whether this is already happening in your town, check our camera map, and if you want to push back at a city council meeting, our take-action page has what you need to get started.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of You Awake Yet?, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.