Smash Your Ring Camera
The short version: Taylor Lorenz's livestream connects Ring doorbells to Flock's ALPR network, showing how 'porch safety' footage and plate scans both end up feeding police and federal databases.
Our Take
Credit to Taylor Lorenz for laying out something we hammer on constantly: the line between a 'smart doorbell' and a full-blown surveillance dragnet is basically fictional. Ring's pitch has always been neighborhood safety, but once footage flows into police requests, fusion centers, or federal agencies, the person who bought the camera loses control of where it goes and who gets to watch it. Flock Safety runs the same playbook with license plates instead of faces — pitch it as convenience, quietly build a searchable travel history on everyone who drives past.
What Lorenz highlights about Neighbors app footage applies just as directly to Flock's ALPR network: data collected for one stated purpose routinely gets repurposed for immigration enforcement, broad investigations, or just sitting in a database waiting for the next subpoena. Delivery drivers, undocumented neighbors, protesters, ex-partners — anyone can end up in that footage without ever knowing it exists, let alone consenting to it.
If you want to see how far this has already spread in your own area, check our camera map for nearby Flock installations, and if you'd rather not just watch this happen, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back at the city council level, where these contracts actually get approved.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Taylor Lorenz Livestreams, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.