Lynn Haven PD launches flock cameras

Our Take

Another day, another local news segment that reads more like a press release than journalism. WMBB News 13 covers Lynn Haven PD's new Flock Safety cameras the way most local stations do: a quick nod to "solving crime" with no mention of who audits the data, how long it's retained, or which outside agencies get access to it. That framing isn't accidental — Flock pitches these systems to departments with glossy crime-stat promises, and local reporters rarely push back before the cameras go live.

What gets lost in these segments is the bigger picture. Lynn Haven isn't installing a single camera to watch one intersection — it's plugging itself into a national network that logs the movements of every driver who passes through, regardless of suspicion. That data doesn't stay local for long. Flock's infrastructure is built for sharing across jurisdictions, which means a plate scanned in a small Florida town can end up searchable by agencies hundreds of miles away, with little transparency about oversight.

We credit WMBB News 13 for at least putting this deployment on the public's radar, even if the coverage stops short of asking the hard questions. If you want to see how far this network already reaches, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for your town to get a puff piece before the cameras show up, head to our take-action page to push back before it's installed.