FLOCK flock safety
page 3 / 3
In March 2022, the American Civil Liberties Union released a report criticizing Flock Safety's business model and products. In 2023, the ACLU acknowledged some uses of ALPRs could be acceptable, but emphasized the need for careful controls:
There's no reason the technology should be used to create comprehensive records of everybody's comings and goings — and that is precisely what ALPR databases like Flock's are doing. In our country, the government should not be tracking us unless it has individualized suspicion that we're engaged in wrongdoing.
An activist created a crowdsourced map of Flock cameras called DeFlock; the project is run by Will Freeman, a Colorado-based organizer. Langley called the project "terroristic", and Flock sent a cease and desist letter to the project.
In October 2024, the Institute for Justice filed a federal lawsuit against the Norfolk Police Department on behalf of two local residents, asserting that the department's use of Flock ALPRs constitutes illegal surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In California, state law prohibits sharing license plate reader data with federal agencies, but in 2025 it was reported that several state and municipal law enforcement agencies have nonetheless done so.
In 2025, it was reported that Flock data had been queried for use in immigration enforcement. A pilot program of investigation with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations was initiated to help combat human trafficking and fentanyl distribution. Flock halted the program in August because of "confusion and concerns" about the purpose of the investigations. Local governments shared the data by either blindly approving the inquiries or unknowingly signing onto the national sharing option. Langley falsely stated that Flock did not have federal contracts.
In December 2025, 404 Media reported that Flock left at least 60 of its Condor cameras "around the country exposed to the open internet, where anyone could watch them, download 30 days worth of video archive, and change settings, see log files, and run diagnostics".
In late June 2026, ABC affiliate WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported that after a Flock contract with the city of Cleveland expired following a 3-1 vote against renewing Flock's contract with the city, the cameras remained on and were still being used by local police. Cleveland Police Sgt. Freddy Diaz stated that the cameras would remain operational "at minimum" until July 15th when another meeting with the city council would take place to allow for a secondary review of the contract with Flock. Local activists called the situation "incredibly disappointing", and called the police department's support for the technology "not compelling".
In 2026, a review of media reports since 2024 by the Institute for Justice revealed that officers from across the nation have been abusing Flock along with other ALPR systems to stalk former romantic partners. Some of these cases were discovered by private citizens and journalists through noticing patterns of abuse in public records from police departments, raising concerns about underreporting and also lack of oversight by the authorities themselves.
In June 2026, WSLS-TV reported that a Flock device was installed on a Roanoke homeowner's yard without prior notice, and was identified as a Flock Raven device upon inspection by a police officer called to the scene by the homeowner. Roanoake City Council had voted in April to approve 75 installations of Flock Raven devices, but her address was not on the approved list, and none of the installations were scheduled to take place until July. The gunshot detector was later removed from her property, and the city later determined that 30 of the 41 devices installed up to that point were placed in unapproved locations.
== References ==
== External links ==
Media related to Flock Safety at Wikimedia Commons