In SF, two teenagers are leading the fight against Flock
The short version: Two San Francisco teenagers are organizing against Flock's ALPR network, proving this fight isn't limited to policy wonks and civil liberties lawyers.
Our Take
Credit where it's due: The San Francisco Standard found a story that cuts against the usual narrative about who cares about surveillance. It's not just privacy lawyers and EFF staffers raising alarms about Flock Safety's camera network — it's teenagers who grew up with every move trackable and decided that's not normal, actually. That generational gap matters. If kids who've never known a world without constant data collection are the ones pushing back hardest, that should tell you something about how corrosive this technology really is.
Flock's pitch has always been that these cameras are a quiet background utility for cops chasing stolen cars. In practice, they've built a searchable, retained log of where millions of ordinary drivers go, sold to police departments with little public debate and even less oversight. San Francisco has had its own messy rollout fights over this exact system, and it makes sense that local organizing would spring up there first. Young organizers without institutional backing taking this on directly is the kind of grassroots pressure that actually moves city councils, more than another op-ed ever will.
We'd like to see this kind of local energy multiply. If you want to know whether a Flock camera is already watching your street, check our camera map, and if you're ready to do something about it, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back in your own city.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of The San Francisco Standard, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.