The Facts

What Flock Safety cameras are, what they do with your data, and what the record shows about how they get used. Each section stands on its own, so skip to what matters to you.

What is a Flock Safety camera?

Flock Safety cameras are small, pole-mounted units that read license plates automatically. Each one photographs every vehicle that drives past, recording the plate number, timestamp, location, vehicle make and model, and direction of travel. The system runs continuously, with no human deciding when to capture.

A Flock Safety ALPR camera mounted on a pole beside a public road

The data goes into Flock's cloud database, where it's accessible to law enforcement agencies across the country. Denver's 111 cameras scan roughly 2 million plates per month (CBS News). Most of those plates belong to people with no connection to any crime.

Flock markets the cameras as a tool to recover stolen vehicles and solve property crimes. The system has no way to know in advance which vehicles are relevant. It logs everyone.

Where the data goes

Flock's network connects roughly 5,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide. When your plate is scanned in Auburn or Opelika, agencies far beyond Lee County can query that record.

Before Virginia enacted ALPR regulations in 2025, ICE accessed local Flock data thousands of times. A single small Virginia town's camera network was searched nearly 7 million times by outside agencies in one year (Virginia State Crime Commission, January 2026).

Alabama has no state law governing ALPR data. There are no local rules limiting which agencies can search Auburn's or Opelika's camera records, how long the data is kept, or under what circumstances federal agencies can request it.

What they say it does

Flock Safety's marketing claims, measured against the available evidence.

The claim
What the evidence shows
Reduces vehicle theft
No peer-reviewed study shows significant theft reduction from ALPR deployment.
Solves violent crime
The system tracks vehicles, not people. It was not designed for violent crime investigation and there's no documented evidence it reduces it.
Data stays local
Data is shared across Flock's national network. Federal agency access is documented (Virginia State Crime Commission, EFF).
Officers use it responsibly
Documented misuse cases in Wisconsin, Kansas, Texas, Nevada, and elsewhere. See below.

When it goes wrong

False positives

ALPR systems misread plates. When they do, the person driving that vehicle gets treated as a suspect. These are documented cases, not hypotheticals.

  • Aurora, CO. A family, including a 6-year-old, was held at gunpoint after an ALPR misread a plate. The city settled for $1.9 million.1
  • Española, NM. A 12-year-old was handcuffed after the system misread a digit and flagged the vehicle as stolen.2
  • Cherry Hills Village, CO. Kyle Dausman was stopped twice on the same erroneous alert. Flock told local police the error could not be corrected at the local level.2
  • Thanksgiving stop. Brian Hofer's family was held at gunpoint on a holiday after an ALPR alert flagged their vehicle in error.1

Officer misuse

Access to a vehicle's movement history is a significant power. In several documented cases, officers have used that access for personal purposes.

  • Menasha, WI (January 2026). A police officer was charged with using Flock to track his ex-girlfriend's vehicle.3
  • Sedgwick County, KS. The police chief conducted 164 unauthorized searches of the ALPR system and resigned.4
  • Kechi, KS. A police lieutenant was arrested for using the system to track his estranged wife.5

The revolving door

Flock Safety has hired elected officials and public figures after they were involved in approving contracts with the company.

In Cleveland, the city council's majority leader resigned and joined Flock's team. A $2 million no-bid contract with the city followed (Consumer Rights Wiki). In Moreno Valley, CA, a sitting mayor accepted a position with Flock while still in office.

For the full documentation, consumerrights.wiki has sourced records on both cases.

Communities saying no

As of May 2026, 68 cities and counties have canceled or rejected Flock Safety contracts. These aren't all progressive cities. Flagstaff, AZ and Lockhart, TX are among them.

Some acted after a documented error or misuse case. Others decided they didn't want mass vehicle tracking before something went wrong. The full list and council toolkit are at deflock.org/council.

Sources

  1. 1.CBS News, "When license plate readers get it wrong"
  2. 2.Consumer Rights Wiki: Flock Surveillance
  3. 3.FOX 11, "Menasha police officer accused of using license plate recognition system to track his ex-girlfriend"
  4. 4.KAKE, "Sedgwick police chief tracked ex-girlfriend 164 times using license plate cams"
  5. 5.KWCH, "Kechi police lieutenant arrested for using police technology to stalk wife"
  • deflock.org: national contract cancellations, council toolkit
  • Virginia State Crime Commission (January 2026 audit): federal agency access data, ICE searches
  • Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF): ALPR data sharing and federal access
  • Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism: Virginia network search data

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