Flock: The Illusion of Choice #Flock #ALPR #Surveillance #Privacy #MisfitsGuide
The short version: Misfits Guide to the Galaxy shows that ditching Flock for Verkada or Axon often just swaps one license-plate-tracking vendor for another.
Our Take
Misfits Guide to the Galaxy puts a finger on something we've been saying for a while: the Flock backlash is real, but it's not automatically a privacy win. Santa Barbara dropping Flock for Verkada, Syracuse pivoting to Axon, the Park Service quietly wiring up Yosemite — these aren't stories about communities rejecting mass license plate tracking. They're stories about communities picking a new logo for the same surveillance apparatus.
The video's distinction between "networked" and "closed" ALPR systems matters more than most city councils seem to grasp. A closed system might not feed Flock's nationwide search network, but your plate is still getting scanned, logged, and stored by a private company that answers to shareholders, not voters. And as the video points out, Verkada's own FTC security history should give any city pause before treating it as the responsible alternative to Flock's data-sharing sprawl.
The real question isn't which vendor's cameras hang on the pole — it's whether your city should be running dragnet plate surveillance at all. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your neighborhood, regardless of brand, and hit up take-action for tools to push back before your council trades one tracking system for another.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Misfits Guide to the Galaxy, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.