**Hackers Crack Open Flock Camera — Find Encryption Key, 27,000+ Clips & 1.6 Million Images**

Our Take

Credit to Lark technology for doing something Flock itself should've stress-tested years ago: popping the hood on one of these roadside cameras and seeing what's actually inside. According to the video, the teardown didn't just confirm these units are recording everyone who drives by — it found an encryption key and access to a stash of 27,000+ video clips and 1.6 million images. That's not an abstract privacy concern anymore. That's a physical box on a pole holding a massive trove of location data on ordinary people, and apparently it's not as locked down as the company's PR promises.

This is the part of the ALPR debate that gets glossed over in city council meetings: it's not just "is Flock watching me," it's "who else can get to what Flock collected." Every camera is a data honeypot — cops, contractors, and now, apparently, anyone with the right tools and enough patience. When a hobbyist can allegedly extract a device's encryption key, you have to ask what a motivated bad actor, stalker, or foreign adversary could do with the same access. Mass surveillance infrastructure doesn't get safer just because a private company built it instead of the government.

If your town has these cameras, you deserve to know it, and you deserve a say in whether they stay up. Check our map to see what's been spotted near you, and if you're ready to push back, our take-action page has concrete steps for getting this in front of your local officials.