When Flock Tells Cities Their Cameras Don’t Track Movement

The video above highlights a Wisconsin city council being told, in essence, that Flock Safety’s automated license plate readers don’t build a picture of where a car has been. That’s a striking claim to make about a networked ALPR system, and it’s the kind of statement worth examining closely rather than taking on faith.

What ALPR systems actually do

By design, a network of automated license plate readers records the time, date, location, and plate number of every vehicle that passes a camera. When a city has multiple cameras — and especially when it shares data with other agencies through a regional or national network — those individual snapshots can be strung together. That’s not a hidden feature or a bug; it’s the basic mechanical function of the technology. A single camera photographs a plate once. A network of cameras, cross-referenced over time, can reconstruct a pattern of where a vehicle has traveled. Whether a company calls that a “heat map,” a “vehicle history,” or something else, the underlying capability is the same.

Why the framing matters

Local officials rely on vendor representations when they decide whether to approve a surveillance contract, and residents rely on those same officials to ask the right questions. If a company’s public description of its own product understates what the system can do, city councils may be voting on incomplete information — and the public debate that’s supposed to happen before cameras go up gets shortchanged. This is precisely the kind of pattern the ACLU has reportedly flagged as a recurring issue in Flock’s communications with cities, police departments, and the public, according to the video above.

What you can do

You don’t have to be a technologist to hold your local government accountable. Ask your city council or police department directly: does our ALPR system store location history? For how long? Who else can access it? Is it shared outside our jurisdiction? Request the actual vendor contract rather than relying on a summary. If your city already has cameras, you can check our map to see what’s been documented near you. If you’re new to this issue, our learn section breaks down how ALPR networks work in plain terms, and our take action page has steps for engaging your local officials before contracts are renewed or expanded.

Surveillance technology isn’t inherently the problem — misleading the public about what it does is. Cities deserve accurate information before they hand over budget dollars and public trust.