Lakeland, TN chooses to fight crime with Flock Safety license plate readers

Our Take

Notice who's publishing this "news" clip: Flock Safety itself. A local TV segment about a small Memphis suburb buying ALPR cameras gets a second life on the company's own channel, stripped of any critical follow-up questions a skeptical reporter might ask later — like how long the data is stored, who else gets access to it, or what happens when the system misidentifies a car. That's not journalism, it's marketing dressed up as a news hit, and it's worth remembering every time a city council watches a similar reel before voting to approve a Flock contract.

Lakeland is a small town, but the pattern is the same everywhere: a vendor-supplied pitch about "fighting crime," a quick council vote, and cameras go up before residents get a real conversation about mass tracking of everyone's movements, not just suspects. Flock's network shares data across agencies and states, meaning a purchase in one small Tennessee suburb quietly expands a surveillance web far beyond its town limits.

If you want to see how far that web already reaches, check our camera map to find Flock readers near you, and if your town is considering a similar deal, our take-action guide has the questions you should be asking before anyone votes yes.