Looking back on Junior year, those 10 months presented a great shift in my life. Among all the antics a kid gets themself into at 16, I took the rite of passage getting my driver’s license. The first time you drive alone — legally— is absolutely exhilarating, but you also have that back-of-the-head fear you’re going to make a mistake and end up flipped over on Highway 17 and fly off the mountains. Now, in the tense and unkind environment of the open road, it was no joy of mine to have a Flock Camera stare me down at the intersection of Hacienda and Winchester, and then from Sunnyoaks to Winchester, and then three down Quito, and what a surprise: Budd to Pollard is wired up with a fresh camera too?
The company Flock, established in 2017, focuses on general 3rd-party security and distributes Flock Safety devices across the country. As of August 2026, they are worth roughly 8.4 billion dollars. With almost a decade of operations, they are valued roughly the same as the entire GDP of Barbados. Founded predominantly by Garrett Langley, the company’s current CEO, the company has distributed 120,000 Flock devices, exploding in business with clients ranging from community boards all the way to governmental projects. The devices in question are ALPR cameras (Automated License Plate Reader). Built into the system, the camera possesses photo scanning and AI recognition software, sometimes connected to police databases, to identify vehicles and people. On its ability to identify humans, the camera recognizes organic movements—people—through a utility known as FreeForm. The technology can sort for distinct movements that appear organic, like highlighting two people walking down a road.
With different clients requiring different needs, Flock cameras can be categorized within two operations: between deployment in private operations and public sectors. Community governing bodies, such as an HOA, can license cameras with Flock and install cameras in their private communities. Similarly, businesses that require security around their operations, like large tech companies, stadiums, and data centers.Even government infrastructure like hydro dams and electric substations all have a realistic need for a safety system to keep vital parts of their organization secure. In saying that, with such a powerful tool allotted to these organizations, the organizers themselves assume a great deal of responsibility. One structural fear in this circumstance comes to mind: misuse.
Sadly, there are already hundreds of cases reflecting glaring ineptitude. A report that stood out involved a Flock Vice President logging into a private Flock camera via the police access and viewing a children’s gymnastics class. Further detailing the story, the owner of the studio where this occurred purchased a Flock camera for general security of the property. Howbeit, the Dunwoody Police Department contacted the owner, telling him that he could give them camera access, “Solely for real-time critical incident response,” and when the owner gave DPD access, the matter devolved. A Flock VP accessed DPD’s clearance to the camera. He watched the activities of the children inside the Gymnastics room more than any other of the 400 cameras available. This was explained after the action as part of a “demo” and legal under the agreement the city signed with Flock, despite there being no evidence of an agreement. Beyond the fact that the Dunwoody city council continues to form deals and support Flock infrastructure, this case of private cameras being intercepted maliciously by outside interests is a mold on the security of those spied on by the cameras, unknown to who could be viewing them. Additionally, both the private and public sector become irrelevant when the option to infiltrate both is achievable. Benn Jordan, a security researcher and YouTuber with 1.37 million subscribers, concluded with his research team —Joshua Michael and Jon Gaines— that the system in which Flock operates lacks needed security. Jordan best displayed Flock’s inadequacy by hacking a camera with a simple diagnostics device, giving him access to the camera and its various capabilities. No more than a few seconds with the device, and he could commandeer it. A group with knowledge of the operation of the device accessed it. Thankfully, Benn Jordan is not depraved and uses his powers solely to inform; who knows what the less respectable would do? Yes, the idea that private surveillance is a necessary expense is justifiable. In saying that, in the wrong hands, technologies unvetted by the companies and departments which manage them pose a malignant threat to public privacy.
With such a sprawling network of devices —licensed so eagerly by city police departments— what happens when such a dynamic power is given so freely to unvetted people? Well, as any English teacher would reply if asked for an example of a theme, “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Take the report by ABCNews 4 WCIV, that a Lieutenant with the Colleton County Sheriff’s Office, South Carolina, Ruben Carter, a man in a powerful role in his community, had been the perpetrator of more than 2700 unauthorized camera uses within one year. He viewed his friends, his fellow deputies, and former associates, totaling 14 different individuals tracked. When an audit was conducted on the county’s Flock usage and his innumerable, vile actions were discovered, he was promptly fired. Carter is just one of the over a hundred cases of ALPR abuse in police departments across the US. However, it is not fair to blame the police departments entirely for all this misconduct, much of the unprofessionalism of the police is attributed to the cameras themselves. The ACLU finds that about one in ten of the billions of vehicle captures processed a month by Flock are faulty. This seems harmless: “One in ten are wrong? And so what?” On August 6th, police in Wisconsin intercepted a vehicle on highway I-94 after a Flock camera identified it as the suspect in a homicide investigation. The information that the camera had given officers was invalid; the car had been cleared by police as not part of the crime, but the Flock camera system did not identify this when alerting the officers. An innocent woman was detained by police, who brandished guns and carried out a wrongful arrest completely oblivious to its implications. One of those ten literally could be anyone, and any possible crime could be inflicted on that vehicle, that driver, that innocent American. If you are curious about other documented cases of ALPR abuse and infringement, visit the Institute for Justice’s database on these incidents. In all honesty, some of the cases just disgusted me; there are too many to name. What’s worse is that these are the only ones that are deemed offences. Find information in the link here: https://ij.org/the-ij-database-of-alpr-abuse/.
Trailing the footprints of these privacy-breaking missteps, unified public outcry has descended on local town halls and community meetings. Constant horror stories pouring in about the unfiltered creeps who manage these devices and the obvious ineffectiveness of the technology continue to tilt the favor of towns: from Tempe, Arizona; to Santa Cruz, California; to the entire state of Alaska; to our very own city of Campbell and the greater Santa Clara County. An ever-increasing number of cities and districts recognize the community distrust in these public cameras. Shockingly, the government recognizes the people’s grievances: “Americans deserve answers,” says Republican Missouri Senator Josh Hawley. Impressively, bipartisan criticisms have been an emerging force in Congress, “I don’t think that’s something that’s a Democratic or Republican issue,” stated Adam Lee, Democratic State Representative for Maine. There is something extremely persevering about cases of civil backlash to Flock cameras being met, discussed, and resolved.
In a country the Pew Research Center says has an abysmal 17% trust in government, seeing people take matters into their own hands impresses that people control the government, and not the authoritarian latter. In all of the capabilities new technologies unlock, a deeper need for caution is essential. If we, as a society, refrain from accepting corporate ideals that do not adhere to our desires as the people, I don’t doubt for a second that we will tilt the progress of human autonomy, ever the more questioned as our city, our state, and our country trudges on. I feel nothing admonishes the capitalist surveillance state better than the words of one of our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” Understand, in every strive to push security infrastructure, a sacrificial jab at principle liberties divides the American from their natural rights.
Every day I pass that black box on the corner of Hacienda and Winchester. It stares vastly into me; I reluctantly stare at it, noting its emptiness. I wonder if it really is out of commission? How many photos did it take of me and my elegant vehicle? Would my dinky, 17-year old Toyota Prius ever get flagged for someone else’s maldoings? With respect to the Old West, are the days of riding free into the sunset a passion set asunder?
Even the one-in-ten statistic has been recently challenged to be far greater than presented. An individual study in Roseville, California, concluded that their Flock network was incorrectly reading the license plate of 71% imaged vehicles. The camera, dependent completely on its AI data analysis, cannot conduct proper data analysis.