Flock Cameras: Safety or privacy?
The short version: KGET News frames Flock cameras as a 'safety vs. privacy' debate, but that framing tends to undersell how much data these networks actually collect.
Our Take
Local news segments like this one from KGET News do something useful: they put Flock Safety cameras in front of people who've never heard of them and force a conversation about trade-offs. But the 'safety or privacy' headline is a false binary. These systems aren't just reading plates when a crime occurs — they're logging every vehicle that passes, building a searchable location history on millions of innocent drivers, whether or not a camera ever helps solve a case.
What usually gets lost in a five-minute broadcast segment is scale and retention. One intersection camera is a nuisance; a statewide, networked system queried by dozens of agencies — sometimes outside their own jurisdiction — is a different animal entirely. The 'does it work' question matters, but so does 'who can see this data, for how long, and under what oversight.' Those are the questions local reporting should keep pushing on.
Credit to KGET News for putting this in front of a local audience. If you want to see whether these cameras are already watching your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you want to push back on their expansion, our take-action page has concrete steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KGET News, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.