Flock Cameras | Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs or LPRs)

Dylan Eleven | Truth11.com

Flock cameras and other licence plate readers from additional companies are being installed in the U.S. and Canada. Many people are protesting these invasive devices due to privacy violations and risk of misuse concerns; with limited proven benefits.

Some people are protesting legally and others are fighting back by taking them down, similar to the blade runners in the UK.

At deflock.org you can see interactive maps showing locations, and timelines of installation.

DeFlock.org

An open-source project mapping license plate readers. 113,899 LPRs mapped in the USA, 86 Cities are rejecting LPRS.

What are ALPRs

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.

[Image Above] Example of an annotated license plate reader photo showing captured vehicle details

The Dangers of ALPRs

Privacy Violations

ALPRs track your movements and store your data for long periods of time, creating a detailed record of your location history.

Risk of Misuse

Data from ALPRs has led to wrongful arrests, profiling, and stalking ex-partners by police officers.

Limited Benefits

There's no substantial evidence that ALPRs effectively prevent crime, despite Flock's unethical attempts to prove otherwise.

ALPRs are a serious risk to your privacy and civil liberties. These systems continuously record your movements without a warrant, probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion. Your driving history is rarely confined to the town or city where the cameras are installed. It's typically shared with thousands of other agencies nationwide (secretly). Once the data is out of your community, you have no control over how it's used or what rules apply, leading to instances of misuse.

What is Flock?

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, and other vendors still participate in similar practices. See this list of other common ALPR vendors.

ALPRs Do Not Reduce Crime

There's no independent research proving that ALPRs can reduce crime. Headlines and supporting studies claiming otherwise are often produced by the companies selling ALPRs and the police agencies buying them.

For example, Flock Safety claims that 10% of Reported Crime in the U.S. Is Solved Using Flock Technology. The study that Flock cites was conducted by two Flock employees and “given legitimacy with the 'oversight' of two academic researchers whose names are also on the paper” according to a report by 404 Media. Flock Safety is using the veneer of an academic study as part of its sales pitch.

What research does exist regarding the ability of ALPRs to reduce crime is inconclusive at best:

Our findings indicate that, when small numbers of LPR patrols are used in crime hot spots in the way we have tested them here, they do not seem to generate either a general or offense-specific deterrent effect.

-Journal of Experimental Criminology

There is not even a moderate degree of correlation between ALPRs and stolen vehicle recoveries, let alone any apparent casualty

-Automated License Plate Readers: A Study in Failure

ALPRs Are A Major Security Risk

Companies that make ALPRs have a history of poor security practices, which can lead to data breaches and unauthorized access to sensitive information. For example:

In November 2025, a security researcher found Flock logins for sale on Russian hacking forums, since Flock negligently doesn't require multifactor authentication, an alleged violation of federal law and industry standard security practices.
In January 2025, Motorola Solutions' ALPR system was found to have a critical security flaw that allowed anyone to access live data from their cameras. Data includes license plate numbers, make, model, color, and timestamps. A live feed of both cameras (color and infrared) was also available to stream using a web browser.
In July 2025, Flock Safety exposed a misconfigured demo site that included (1) their internal search interface and some source code, some of which reveals how they calculate confidence scores for vehicle tracking and (2) a live ArcGIS admin API key, which included access to over 50 private data layers.

ALPRs Are Dragnet Surveillance

See Dragnet (Policing) on Wikipedia.

A study of ALPRs in Piedmont, CA, found that less than 0.3% of ALPR hits might translate into a useful investigative lead. Most license plates recorded were not on a hot list, yet police still logged information on people's movements throughout the day.

Flock Safety provides Transparency Portals to their police customers, which allow the public to see the data collected by ALPRs. From these portals, we can see that the vast majority of license plates scanned are not on a hot list (vehicles suspected of being involved in crimes). For example:

ALPRs Are Abused

There are many documented cases where police have knowingly used ALPRs to commit crimes and put people in danger. These examples illustrate that it can be difficult to put meaningful restrictions in place that prevent ALPRs from being used for nefarious purposes. It's often only after harm is done that an officer is caught and punished, if at all.

ALPR Usage Leads To Dangerous Police Encounters

The negligent use of ALPRs has led to dangerous police encounters, including pulling guns on innocent drivers. Here are just a few examples:

San Francisco Woman Pulled Out of Car at Gunpoint Because of License Plate Reader Error
Cops Terrorize Black Family but Blame License Plate Reader for Misidentifying 'Stolen' Vehicle
Deputies Sued After False ALPR Hit Leads To Guns-Out Traffic Stop Of California Privacy Activist
Privacy advocate sues CoCo sheriff's deputies after license plate readers target his car stolen
A Denver woman had to prove her innocence after incompetent detectives relied on Flock cameras to pin a $25 package theft on her (video).

ALPRs Result In Racist Policing

ALPRs are more likely to surveil communities with a higher density of Black and brown people, reinforcing systemic racism in policing.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation reviewed the use of ALPRs by the Oakland Police Department and found that ALPR cameras were more likely to scan license plates in communities with a higher density of Black and brown people than in communities with a higher density of white people.

A report by The Associated Press shows that after 9/11, the NYPD used ALPRs to monitor Muslims visiting mosques.

A study of Flock Safety’s impact in Oak Park, IL found: