Flock Safety is one of the largest ALPR vendors in the United States. Their cameras are installed for police departments, businesses, and HOAs. Captured vehicle data is uploaded to Flock’s cloud system, where participating agencies can search and share information across jurisdictions. Flock is not the only ALPR vendor. Other vendors still participate in similar practices.
WHAT ARE ALPR’S?
Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs or LPRs) are AI-powered cameras that capture and analyze images of all passing vehicles, storing details like your car’s location, date, and time. They also capture your car’s make, model, color, and identifying features such as dents, roof racks, and bumper stickers, often turning these into searchable data points.
These cameras collect data on millions of vehicles regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime. These systems are marketed as indispensable tools to fight crime, but they ignore the powerful tools police already have to track criminals, such as cell phone location data, creating a loophole that doesn’t require a warrant.
WHAT IS THE PROBLEM WITH FLOCK SURVEILLANCE?
Flock’s ALPR cameras aren’t like your normal traffic cameras. This surveillance technology records and tracks every car that comes into view.Next, an AI algorithm catalogs the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers, and even scratches. This personal information is then uploaded into a nationwide database that any law enforcement agency with a Flock contract can search — with few regulations or oversight on how they use what they find.
Flock provides one of the most widely used ALPR systems, but they aren’t the only surveillance company. Other vendors still participate in similar practices. See this list of other common ALPR vendors.
Problematically, these ALPR’s have a lack of transparency, oversight, and regulation into how they collect, store, and use our data, and how to hold public and private actors accountable if they abuse it. Consider how much someone could learn about your life if cameras constantly tracked where you drove. They could discover which doctors you visit, what house of faith you worship at, who you visit or drive around with — even which political meetings and protests you attend.
And we’ve already seen how this mass surveillance tool can be weaponized and abused by law enforcement. ICE and CBP have repeatedly used Flock to go after immigrants without warrants. Kansas police used them to pursue a man who wrote a critical op-ed about the department, while a Colorado police officer wrongfully accused a woman of theft based on a Flock hit and then refused to look at evidence proving her innocence. A mother and her children were held at gunpoint because ALPR cameras wrongly flagged their car as stolen.
My opinion? Automatic license plate reader (ALPR) companies like Flock Safety are quietly trying to build a nationwide mass surveillance system. If there are Flock cameras in your city, they are tracking, logging, and sharing your movements without a warrant. Please contact my office if you, a friend or family member are charged with a crime involving Search & Seizure issues. Hiring an effective and competent defense attorney is the first and best step toward justice.
