“Flock Safety automated license plate reader cameras infringe on the public's privacy.”

FDOT said the action was prompted by the rapid expansion of automated license plate readers, along with reports of misuse, data privacy concerns and surveillance schemes.

Critics argue that while a single camera may capture only a momentary snapshot, a network of cameras can create a detailed record of someone's movements over time. Privacy advocates warn that such systems could reveal where people live, work, worship, seek medical treatment or attend political events.

Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) build a searchable map of everywhere a driver goes, fed into databases that police, ICE, and private vendors can query after the fact. Networked across a city, ALPRs are purpose-built to track everyone regardless of suspicion. … A council vote against a Flock contract and a warrant argument in Santa Clara County Superior Court are both, at their core, the same fight: rejecting mass surveillance infrastructure outright, and using every venue available to eliminate its harmful presence and consequences. … But Flock ALPR (Automated License Plate Readers) erode civil liberties from the moment they're installed. While officials claim these cameras keep neighborhoods safe, the evidence tells a different story.

The major problem here is the fact that Flock’s enhanced audit and transparency tools help to address a problem that Flock itself has created—an abusable mass surveillance system that tracks all cars all the time. … But Flock ALPR (Automated License Plate Readers) erode civil liberties from the moment they're installed. While officials claim these cameras keep neighborhoods safe, the evidence tells a different story.

ALPR companies like Flock violate our privacy across the country by taking photos of every vehicle passing their cameras, logging detailed information about them into a massive nationwide database, and making it possible to track those vehicles and apply AI to uncover their occupants’ private patterns of life.

In a new analysis, ACLU warns of gaps in Flock’s proposed changes and why the company’s license plate readers still threaten civil liberties … Flock operates more than 120,000 automatic license plate readers in at least 6,000 cities across the country, raising serious concerns around mass surveillance, data privacy, and how police and the government can use this data to go after immigrants, protestors, and others.

Automatic license plate reader (ALPR) companies like Flock Safety are quietly building a nationwide mass surveillance system. If there are Flock cameras in your city, they’re tracking, logging, and sharing your movements without a warrant. … Think about how much someone could learn if cameras constantly tracked where you drove: which doctors you visit, where you worship, who you spend time with — even which protests you attend.

While the California Legislature recognizes the benefits that ALPR technology can provide to law enforcement agencies, it also recognizes that ALPR technology can invade personal privacy and harm civil liberties. … Flock’s amassment of ALPR camera data, its proprietary surveillance tools, and its ability to profile and track vehicles all raise serious privacy concerns.

Two Idaho cities are facing tort claims alleging their license plate camera systems violate state privacy law, as local officials in both communities move to amend their contracts with camera vendor Flock Safety. … "The City's contract with Flock Safety allows the company to use and profit from this data, which Idaho Code § 49-1432 prohibits," McKellar wrote in the claim, calling it "negligence and an invasion of my privacy under Idaho law."

Americans across the country have objected the privacy invasion of the infamous mass surveillance company Flock Safety as a nationwide movement has emerged to oppose local partnerships with Flock.

Because Flock’s indiscriminate system records information on all cars and drivers that pass its cameras, “we have a company working to record the comings and goings of every single person in the country,” in what Marlow calls “a very un-American take on privacy.” … Their surveillance technology records and tracks every car or human that comes into view, and then an AI algorithm catalogs the make, model, color, license plate number, bumper stickers and even scratches. This personal information is then uploaded to a nationwide database that any law enforcement agency with a Flock contract can search, with little oversight on how they use what they find.

But when combined with a network of AI-assisted automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), those aluminum rectangles stamped with numbers and letters become tracking devices that can provide a comprehensive history of a driver's movements, potentially revealing sensitive information about his habits, health, relationships, political affiliations, and religious beliefs.

While the California Legislature recognizes the benefits that ALPR technology can provide to law enforcement agencies, it also recognizes that ALPR technology can invade personal privacy and harm civil liberties. … Flock has violated the ALPR Privacy Act—and Californian drivers’ privacy rights—an untold number of times by facilitating federal agencies’ and out-of-state law enforcement’s access to and use of its California ALPR databases and failing to implement reasonable security measures to prevent such unauthorized access.

Automatic license plate reader (ALPR) companies like Flock Safety are quietly trying to build a nationwide mass surveillance system.

Cities have faced scrutiny around the use of automatic license plate readers, such as Flock, in three main areas: legal liability of public records, new restrictions put in place by the Legislature and public concerns about surveillance, according to Derrick Nunnally, the government relations advocate for the Association of Washington Cities. … Flock has also been in the news because of its potential use for immigration enforcement and abuse by local law enforcement. A recent Washington Post investigation found authorities have charged or accused at least 50 law-enforcement officers of misusing the technology, which has included stalking women. … “What they shouldn’t be able to do is create a massive database of everyone’s vehicle movements and then search through it whenever they decide they want to investigate someone without requiring a search warrant,” Rodriguez said.

Last year, two senators expressed grave privacy concerns and wrote in a letter to the company that “abuse of Flock cameras is inevitable.” … “Modern-day license plate reader systems, like Norfolk’s, are nothing like [the technology of the early 1980s],” Michael Soyfer, one of the Institute of Justice attorneys, told Ars by email. “They track the movements of virtually every driver within a city for weeks at a time. That can reveal a host of insights not captured in any single trip.” … “Further,” he said, “looking at the technology as a mere tool, rather than a system of surveillance, misses the mark on its erosion of privacy. Think how revealing ALPRs would be outside religious institutions, gun ranges, medical clinics, addiction treatment centers, or protests.”

The suit asks the court to compel the city of San Jose and the police department to delete all Flock images within 24 hours except when there are warrants. … “But our belief is that it’s the collection of data that’s really the injury to people’s privacy, and not necessarily access. It’s the maintenance of this very widely available database.”

ALPR systems are designed to capture information on every vehicle that passes within view. That means they don't just capture data on "criminals" but on everyone, all the time—and that includes people engaged in their First Amendment right to publicly dissent.

At minimum, this dragnet surveillance means warrantless tracking of everyone on the road. At worst, it means a digital police state wherein law enforcement officials in far-flung jurisdictions outside of Massachusetts can track protesters, political opponents, immigrants, patients, and others not suspected of any crime and use the information to hurt them.

The lawsuit “challenges the government’s indiscriminate and warrantless dragnet surveillance of anyone, and everyone, driving in the City of Wichita,” according to court documents. It accuses Wichita of using ALPRs for “continuously tracking, surveilling, monitoring, and compiling a searchable database on law-abiding Kansans—without a warrant, without probable cause, without reasonable suspicion.” … “Due to the ubiquity of Wichita’s Flock ALPR network, Mason cannot go to work, the gym, a doctor’s appointment, a polling place, or a meeting of the Sunflower Privacy Alliance without being tracked and cataloged by the Wichita Police Department and Flock Safety, Inc,” the KJI webpage said.

Plaintiffs allege that by operating and accessing an automatic license plate reader (“ALPR”) system supplied by private contractor Flock Safety (“Flock”)’, Defendants are violating their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches. … They argue that by creating this record, Defendants are violating their Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches because they have a reasonable expectation of privacy in the “whole of their long-term physical movements.”

The two Plaintiffs in this case, Lee Schmidt and Crystal Arrington, both live and conduct business within the curtain of w of the Norfolk Flock cameras. Id. at 12, 14. … Ms. Arrington states that based on what she knows about the Flock cameras and what Chief Talbot has said about their placement. Case 2:24-cv-00621-MSD-LRL Document 29 Filed 02/05/25 Page 3 of 23 PageID# 171 the cameras have photographed her car on multiple occasions, causing her to worry about her own and her client's privacy. Id. at 14-15. … Plaintiffs filed the instant federal lawsuit alleging that the "warrantless surveillance of their every move" violates their Fourth Amendment rights. EOF No. 1, at 2.

As reported by WHRO, the 51-page ruling addressed Norfolk’s then-reported network of 176 Flock cameras and concluded that the system, on the facts presented, did not yet invade a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Therefore, Defendant has not shown that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the Government's warrantless use of the Flock System to search for a specific license plate number and to create a Hot List to track that specific license plate number. … Given the current status and configuration of the Flock System in the Wichita area, the court finds that, in this particular case, there is no violation of an expectation of privacy that society would see as reasonable.

ALPR surveillance systems are inherently vulnerable to both technical exploitation and human manipulation. These vulnerabilities are not theoretical—they represent real pathways for bad actors to access vast databases containing millions of Americans' location data. … Flock operates as a single point of failure that can compromise—and has compromised—the privacy of millions of Americans simultaneously.

According to the complaint, officials can use the database to “create maps of where people have been, where they tend to drive, and even who they tend to meet up with” without a warrant or even probable cause. … The court held that plaintiffs plausibly alleged a reasonable expectation of privacy in their movements, and that those expectations were violated by the pervasive camera systems installed in Norfolk.

A class action lawsuit alleges that Flock's license plate reading cameras are breaking the law and violating Californians' privacy by sharing their information with out-of-state law enforcement agencies.

In October 2024, two Norfolk, Virginia, residents filed a federal lawsuit challenging the city’s network of Flock Safety license plate reader cameras as unconstitutional warrantless surveillance. … A federal judge ruled in January 2026 that the cameras do not currently violate the Fourth Amendment, but he warned that expanding the system could cross a constitutional line.

The images stored in the system are collected from areas visible to the public where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy.

the cameras are not designed to capture pictures of humans but may do so incidentally. EOF No. 65, at 11, 18-19, 39. If that occurs, however, the database does not allow searches based on biometric or other human-based characteristics that would allow law enforcement to scan for individuals. Id. at 11-12, 39. … Martin seeks to suppress the evidence and the fruits of RPD officers' warrantless access to the Flock database as an unconstitutional search in violation of the Fourth Amendment. ECF … The Court decides to follow the rather settled caselaw in this area that holds that these systems do not implicate Fourth Amendment concerns.

The suit, co-filed with Milberg PLLC, accuses Flock of violating California's ALPR Privacy Act by sharing license plate data with out-of-state and federal law enforcement agencies. … If you've driven past a Flock camera in California, your license plate and location data may have been: - Logged and stored without your consent - Searched by federal agencies including ICE and CBP - Shared in violation of California privacy law - Accessed by out-of-state law enforcement

We protect your privacy rights by building limits into the system, giving local agencies control, and maintaining accountability by making usage reviewable. … The system is built to support specific, case-based investigations. It’s not meant for broad, always-on watching of people.In plain terms: It’s built for cases, not for watching people. … No. Flock cameras do not use facial recognition technology. Searches are based on vehicle characteristics, and not identity. Flock cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals. It is purpose built for specific public safety investigations, not to monitor people.

Flock Hardware captures video and images in public spaces where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. … Flock’s Footage does not contain Personal Information that connects that image to an identifiable individual. … Flock’s devices are never placed in a location where there is a reasonable expectation of privacy.

We build privacy into the product from the start. We limit what’s collected, who can see it, and how long it’s kept.