A Flocked Up World: Part 1

Garrett Langley, the CEO of Flock Safety, insists that the company’s network of approximately 120,000 AI-powered automated license plate readers have benefits for law enforcement that far outweigh the costs. A large portion of security experts, bi-partisan politicians, and anyone who’s seen Black Mirror, however, are less than happy about Langley’s conviction. Apparently, the thousands of cameras watching our daily commutes and documenting them in an easily searchable database for law enforcement is, for many, reminiscent of a surveillance state.

In other words, many fear that the “costs” Langley alludes to are our freedom of expression promised to us by the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment and our right against unreasonable searches or seizures promised by the Fourth Amendment.

The Context

Flock is far from the only player in the surveillance market, but if this map from DeFlock is to be believed, they’re easily the most pervasive. Roughly 80% of Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are part of the Flock network, with the rest of the market being fought over by dozens of other companies like Motorola Solutions or Axon.

Additionally, Flock’s network of surveillance consists of far more than just AI-powered ALPRs, also selling plain old video cameras, mobile security trailers, and audio detection tools advertised as being able to detect gunshots. But ALPRs are Flock’s bread and butter, and they have partnered with over 5000 law enforcement agencies across 6000 communities in 49 states to create their network of 120,000 strong.

Crucially, Flock’s ALPRs use Artificial Intelligence to create records of every car that drives by, allowing law enforcement officers to quickly search license plate numbers in a database and receive data about where a car has been across the entire country. Gone are the days of combing through hours of security footage to find suspects and evidence; cops can now find juicy details on suspects, or anyone really, in seconds. All without a warrant.

This alone has people unnerved, but to be perfectly fair to Flock Safety, the full dystopian capabilities of their technology have been exaggerated at times. For example, it’s been confirmed by some hacktivists that, contrary to some people’s claims, Flock’s ALPRs do not employ facial recognition. They know when they see a person in general, but they can’t identify someone.

However, the fear Flock’s critics have of being constantly surveilled by the company are not baseless, as Flock users across the country have proved to be irresponsible with the ALPR technology.

The Controversy

Flock Safety has been at the center of massive controversy during the past few months as dozens of law enforcement officers were reported misusing the network for selfish and illegal reasons, making people question if the police, the primary users of this technology, can be trusted with the immense power it provides.

At least 50 officers across the country have been caught misusing technology sold by Flock or similar companies to stalk their exes, assist ICE in finding immigrants (ICE does not have a direct contract to use Flock technology), or to search if people had visited sensitive places like abortion clinics.

In one case, a Georgian police officer searched for the license plate of his ex-girlfriend in Flock’s database approximately 600 times in seven months, occasionally remarking on her whereabouts via text. The ex became so paranoid of being watched during these seven months that she bought a hidden camera detector to scan her walls and even took her car to a mechanic three times to check it for trackers. The whole time she was unaware until the officer admitted to her that his stalking tools were built into the city infrastructure paid for by her tax dollars.

While a good amount of these officers have faced some form of disciplinary action, from losing their job to getting jail time, others have not. Some were even permitted to continue using Flock’s network after their misuse was identified. In other cases, the culprits were former police officers or ones suspended from the force that didn’t have their Flock credentials shut off, allowing them to access the network even off the job.

Using an ALPR network to stalk your ex is clearly immoral, but sometimes the situations in which Flock is used fall into a moral gray area. For example, one woman in Oklahoma got charges of having drugs in her car dropped because she was caught by an officer who searched her license plate in Flock’s database simply because it said California, and was suspicious of her recent travel activity. The judge on the case ruled that the officer’s looking up her car in Flock’s database, collecting information on her entire trip, making a stop, and ultimately searching her car resulted in a violation of her Fourth Amendment rights.

Was it better to let this woman get away with drug smuggling to protect her rights against unlawful searches, or should the officer’s actions have been vindicated? Because of Flock and like companies, we need to ask ourselves at what point do we draw the line that surveillance can’t look past.

Mass Surveillance in General

Now at this point you may be of the mindset that Flock’s CEO Garrett Langley has: it’s awful that the cameras are misused, but the cameras do far more good than harm. It’s a fair perspective as it intuitively makes sense: if someone is watching, you’re less likely to commit a crime.

However, reliable evidence for the efficacy of surveillance as a crime-prevention tool is actually rather hard to come by. As the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) pointed out in a 2008 white paper entitled Expert Findings on Surveillance Cameras, “simply showing an increase or decrease in reported crime in an area under surveillance does not take into account general trends in crime and crime reporting, additional police in the areas under surveillance, better lighting, and perhaps most importantly, the possible displacement of crime to other areas not under surveillance.” A criminal could very simply conduct their business in a different area post-installation of a camera, but from the camera’s perspective there was no crime committed at all, making for an attractive statistic that fails to account for many of the variables that determine crime rates.

Mass surveillance in theory is more effective. It’s the panopticon approach: if cameras are pointed at every part of your public life, it’s unlikely that everyone is being watched at all times, but someone COULD be watching you. We all end up with the sword of Damocles above our heads: enjoying “safety” delivered by a warning to stay in line. It’s not exactly an environment conducive to the promise of free expression outlined in the First Amendment.

Even in the hands of an individual or organization sincerely attempting to uphold the law and protect people, this power is frightening. Think about Lucius Fox’s reaction to Batman’s mass surveillance network in the Dark Knight. The masked vigilante may have used it to save the lives of thousands of Gothamites from the Joker, but Fox was none too happy with Batman creating the tech in the first place. Ultimately, he destroyed it because it was “too much power for one person.”

Because what if this technology were to fall into less-than altruistic hands? A Joker rather than a Batman? Imagine cybercriminals or, more frighteningly, autocratic leaders being able to use this technology to track people who might pose threats to them. Already we are seeing misuse with our strained democracy. Can we trust that, 10 years from now, a network of hundreds of thousands of Flock cameras won’t be used to silently monitor and control our rights to protest, practice our own religions (or lack thereof), and have autonomy over our own bodies?

What the Flock do we do?

Earlier this year, there was major backlash when Ring decided to team up with Flock, ultimately allowing Flock to incorporate Ring’s residential doorbells into their network. People were none too keen on the idea of officers having access to cameras literally on their doorsteps, and the outcry against the partnership was so extreme that the partnership was ultimately cancelled.

Though, publicly, Ring and Flock claim they had other reasons for ending the contract prematurely.

Now in the past few months, officers’ abuse of Flock has caused several agencies across the US (at least 23 of them) to not renew, reject, or deactivate Flock’s ALPRs in their jurisdictions. The states of Texas and Florida have actually moved to end their relationship with Flock entirely, citing abuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes. Notably, however, some of these agencies are simply looking to transition from Flock to other surveillance vendors.

Evidently, there are plenty of people on both sides of the political spectrum who are chafing at the idea of mass surveillance. Regardless, Flock does have their allies, so I’m going to adopt what I consider to be a pessimistic view of the next few years: Flock’s network will continue to grow and every mile of our daily commutes will be recorded for any officer to look up. In this grim reality, at the very least we will need to make some changes to how use of this network is regulated if we want to protect ourselves from unlawful searches.

As for where these changes should come from, we can start pressuring Flock Safety itself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, they seem far more concerned to continue growing as a company than implementing guardrails to regulate their dangerous technology.

Continued in Part 2

Works Cited

• American Civil Liberties Union. “Beware of Other License Plate Surveillance Companies Besides Flock.” ACLU, 25 Aug. 2026, aclu.org.
• American Civil Liberties Union. “Expert Findings on Surveillance Cameras.” ACLU, 25 Jun. 2008, aclu.org. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
• Carter, Claire. “Flock Sees Controversial Camera Contracts Canceled in 23 States.” Washington Examiner, 3 Aug. 2026, washingtonexaminer.com.
• Congress.gov. “First Amendment.” Constitution Annotated, Library of Congress, constitution.congress.gov. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
• Congress.gov. “Fourth Amendment.” Constitution Annotated, Library of Congress, constitution.congress.gov. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
• DeFlock. “DeFlock Map.” DeFlock, maps.deflock.org. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
• Flock Safety. “License Plate Readers.” Flock Safety, flocksafety.com. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
• Flock Safety. “Products.” Flock Safety, flocksafety.com. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
• Harwell, Drew, Douglas MacMillan, and Aaron Schaffer. “How Rogue Officers Turned a Nationwide Camera Network into a Tool for Stalking.” The Washington Post, 2 Aug. 2026, washingtonpost.com.
• “Hackers Got Inside a Flock Camera. Its Data Shows How the System Really Works.” WIRED, 16 Sept. 2026, wired.com.
• Perez, Sarah. “Flock CEO Defends Surveillance Technology amid National Backlash: ‘We Shouldn’t Pause Progress.’” TechCrunch, 14 Oct. 2026, techcrunch.com.
• “Their Police Jobs Ended. They Kept Using Flock’s Vast Surveillance Network.” The Washington Post, 21 Oct. 2026, washingtonpost.com.
• “Ring Cancels Its Partnership with Flock Safety after Surveillance Backlash.” The Verge, theverge.com. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
• “SPD Officer Fired over Flock, ICE, and Husband.” The Verge, theverge.com. Accessed 26 Oct. 2026.
• Whittaker, Zack. “Florida and Texas Move to Block Flock Cameras over Privacy Concerns.” TechCrunch, 1 Sept. 2026, techcrunch.com.
• “Federal Judge Calls Flock Indiscriminate Mass Surveillance.” TechCrunch, 3 Oct. 2026, techcrunch.com.