Concerns on Flock cameras in Decatur
The short version: WMBD News flags local pushback on Flock ALPRs in Decatur, underscoring how little public input often precedes these surveillance rollouts.
Our Take
Another week, another local newsroom picking up on what residents are starting to notice: Flock Safety cameras going up around town with little explanation and even less public debate. WMBD News' report out of Decatur is a familiar pattern we've seen play out in city after city — a police department or city council quietly approves a contract, cameras appear on utility poles, and only after the fact do residents start asking who's watching, what's being logged, and why nobody asked them first.
Credit to WMBD for giving airtime to the concerns, even briefly. These local TV segments matter because they're often the only public record that a conversation happened at all. Flock's business model depends on moving fast and treating ALPR networks as a routine procurement decision rather than a surveillance infrastructure decision — one that captures the movements of every driver, innocent or not, and stores that data for law enforcement access, sometimes shared well beyond the city that installed it.
If you're in Decatur or anywhere else wondering whether these cameras have shown up near you, check our camera map to see what's already been documented in your area. And if your city council hasn't held a real public hearing on this, that's exactly the gap residents can push to close — our take-action resources walk through how to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of WMBD News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.