Here's Exactly How Police Are Violating Your Rights With Flock Camera

Our Take

Credit to Ashley Brasfield for flagging a story that proves what we've been saying all along: Flock Safety's pitch about catching bad guys always glosses over the much bigger problem of who's watching the watchers. Five former Georgia officers now facing charges for allegedly abusing license plate data isn't a hypothetical edge case, it's the system working exactly as designed, just pointed at the wrong target. When you build a nationwide network that logs where everyone drives, you're not just building a tool for solving crimes, you're building a tool that can just as easily be turned into a stalking app, a political enemies list, or a side hustle for cops with access and bad intentions.

The timing here is almost too on the nose. One day you've got a creator asking hard questions about these cameras, the next you've got actual indictments showing the audit trails and internal safeguards everyone promises exist either failed or were ignored. That's the pattern with ALPR scandals across the country: the tech companies and police departments insist there are policies in place, and then it turns out enforcement only happens after someone gets caught, not before. Trust isn't a feature you can bolt onto a surveillance network after the fact.

If you want to see how deep this network already runs in your own backyard, check out our camera map to find Flock installations near you, and if you're ready to push back, our take action page has concrete steps for getting answers from your local city council or police department before the next abuse case makes headlines.