404 Media

2026-08-12 13:35:46

The Government is Monitoring Anti-Flock TikTok and Instagram Accounts

Government surveillance centers are monitoring viral anti-Flock Instagram posts, warning local police about upcoming DeFlock events including one scheduled to start next week, and have told cops to “increase patrols around ALPR [automatic license plate readers]” as backlash to Flock grows, according to government intelligence bulletins obtained using public records requests. The documents also warn about devices “that could be used to identify the locations of Flock cameras.”

Investigative journalist Dan Boguslaw first published several fusion center bulletins about DeFlock, a crowdsourced map of ALPR cameras. 404 Media has now obtained four more recent law enforcement briefings warning police to surveil or beef up patrols of areas where Flock cameras are located (the documents are embedded below). These briefings document instances of Flock vandalism and warn, specifically, about the DeFlock “National Week of Action Against Automated License Plate Readers,” which is essentially a series of public meetings and protests about the dangers of mass surveillance.

In sum, the documents show that local, state, and federal law enforcement are monitoring anti-Flock activists and are trying to tie together people who politically oppose mass surveillance with vigilantes who destroy Flock cameras. 404 Media obtained the documents through a public records act request.

Fusion centers are information-sharing partnerships between local, state, and federal government law enforcement agencies. The documents Boguslaw and 404 Media obtained are “intelligence bulletins,” which are briefings to law enforcement about specific threats. The data is compiled by individual fusion centers in a state and then shared more widely. Many of the documents are marked “Law Enforcement Sensitive.”

A new fusion center warning from the Colorado Information Analysis Center notes “people have begun utilizing the [DeFlock] app to locate and then destroy or disable the ALPRs. Multiple public accounts are posting videos of individuals vandalizing these cameras, adding momentum to the online discourse and influencing others to do the same.” That bulletin highlights a specific Instagrammer, called Nomark.Project, that is “posting daily videos of himself taking down/disabling Flock Security cameras ‘until they’re all gone.’ Comments on these videos show support for this individual’s actions.” That same bulletin also says neo-Nazi accelerationists encouraged the destruction of Flock cameras, but the call to action seems to have quickly dissipated: “Over the past two months, the neo-Nazi accelerations group Private Aryan Resistance began recruiting members on neo-Nazi forum Fash Front to sabotage Flock cameras. The group has since lost traction, but it shows that domestic violent extremist threat actors are also pursuing DeFlock efforts.” There is no indication in the document that neo-Nazis actually did target Flock cameras.

Another bulletin, from the Wisconsin Statewide Intelligence Center via the Northeast Florida Fusion Center, notes, “there is extensive and ongoing chatter on social media platforms such as Facebook and TikTok regarding various methods to interfere with or physically destroy Flock LPR cameras or compromise their connectivity.” In particular, it adds that “On June 25th, 2026 University of South Florida Police Department located a device during a traffic stop that could be used to identify the locations of Flock cameras. Additional investigation determined that the driver is actively involved in the DeFlock movement and has written software, that was made available on the internet, to scan and locate vulnerabilities in internet connected devices.”

DeFlock is an open source, crowdsourced map of ALPR cameras created by a man named Will Freeman. DeFlock was created to show how widespread ALPR cameras are in the United States, and the “DeFlock movement” is a very loose term for a series of local community activists who have educated themselves about Flock surveillance and have asked their local politicians to consider ending their contracts with Flock.

DeFlock has organized a “National Week of Action Against Automated License Plate Readers” for August 16-22. This Week of Action is political in nature, and includes information sessions, marches, and talking points for people who are asking their local communities to consider ending surveillance contracts. DeFlock describes the event as “a variety of public meetings, townhalls, and other events intended to raise awareness about the use of ALPRs in their communities, the harms of these cameras, and how we can work together to end their use.”

The fusion center documents also list specific cities that have signed up for the DeFlock Week of Action; for example, a July 28 bulletin from the North Florida Fusion eXchange notes 11 cities in Florida that “have already signed up to participate.”

“In addition to DeFlock’s call to action, other online groups and individuals are encouraging the destruction of ALPRs and are sharing tactics and techniques through social media by providing detailed instructions on how to damage or disable ALPR cameras, poles, and solar panels,” the bulletin reads.

Freeman told 404 Media that DeFlock has never called for vandalism of Flock cameras.

“DeFlock has never called for disabling cameras or covering license plates, contrary to what recent law enforcement bulletins claim. DeFlock is a grassroots project that started in 2024, focused on maintaining a public map of surveillance infrastructure and encouraging civic engagement such as contacting local representatives, hosting public awareness events like scavenger hunts, and educational outreach. This has worked for nearly 2 years, with over 100 contracts canceled through legitimate public engagement,” Freeman said. “Some of the activity referenced in these bulletins originates from accounts using the DeFlock name without our authorization.”

Vandalizing Flock cameras “wasn’t much of a thing until like a month ago once it became popular,” Freeman added. “Definitely caused by people on social media who aren’t us. I think it just shows that people are independently upset at the installation of these without their knowledge or consent. I try to be as neutral as possible with DeFlock and let people come to their own conclusions. I even changed the language on the site from ‘You’re being tracked!’ to ‘an open source project mapping ALPRs.’ For the most part, the idea of these upsets almost everyone.”

There have been around a few dozen instances of Flock cameras being destroyed, vandalized, disabled, or having their poles cut down. The North Florida Fusion eXchange bulletin adds: “On July 25, 2026, an individual using the Instagram name ‘Thepatrioticgoy’ posted a video where he claims to be a former Flock Safety employee and gives detailed instruction on how to disable Flock cameras and avoid detection at the same time.” In the video itself, the man describes himself as a “Former Flock Safety field tech.”

The bulletin then lists seven instances of Flock cameras being damaged or removed in Florida. “As online calls for the destruction of ALPRs continue to increase, it is likely that [northern Florida] could experience an increase in the vandalization of ALPR cameras, poles, and solar panels. This bulletin is being provided for situational awareness and to encourage law enforcement to remain vigilant when observing or responding to suspicious activity near ALPR sites.”

Boguslaw’s earlier report showed that fusion centers were warning police about “calls for vandalism to ALPRs nationwide” from “the DeFlock movement, an online grassroots group opposing ALPR, [which] utilizes social media platforms to encourage supporters to disable or evade these systems by destroying cameras and covering license plates.”

404 Media obtained documents from the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange, the Wisconsin Statewide Intelligence Center, the New Jersey State Police, the Colorado Information Analysis Center, the North Florida Fusion eXchange, and a summary of a 404 Media article about DeFlock that was sent to a listserv of FBI headquarters employees. We obtained the documents from the New Mexico All Source Intelligence Center, meaning the warnings are circulating widely within law enforcement in the United States; the New Jersey document, for example, was disseminated to a “nationwide ALPR working group and state fusion centers.”

A Flock Safety spokesperson told 404 Media “Damaging public safety equipment is illegal and puts communities at risk, which is why we strongly condemn this type of behavior.”

“Overall, we have seen few reports of vandalism against Flock equipment. When it does happen, we work directly with law enforcement to investigate damaged or stolen cameras,” they added. “People have every right to make their voices heard, but criminal acts should never be part of that process. Damaging public safety equipment ultimately hurts the very communities this technology is there to help protect.”
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The Open Source Project DeFlock Is Mapping License Plate Surveillance Cameras All Over the World

DeFlock has mapped the locations of more than a thousand ALPRs around the United States and thousands more around the world.

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-08-10 14:41:22

The Mayor Who Said 'No' When Flock Came to Town

Norman, Oklahoma is a Flockless outpost on the outskirts of the Oklahoma City metro area. As you drive south down I-35 away from the big city and into Norman, coverage from the automated license plate readers (ALPR) dwindles. That’s because Norman has rejected Flock’s pitch multiple times.

“They've given us two presentations in the last three years at the request of our police department who wanted to implement them,” Stephen Tyler Holman, the mayor of Norman, told me. “They haven’t been back since I’ve been mayor.”

Norman is an outlier. When the surveillance company comes to a city or a town, the city often signs up. The city council in my small town of 12,000 people just voted to install 22 new Flock cameras despite overwhelming pushback from residents. A big centerpiece of Flock’s pitch was that it would help solve crimes. My town’s chief of police told a story about how Flock had been instrumental in arresting child predators.
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Holman told me that Flock and the cops made the same pitch to Norman. “Crime prevention and helping the police more efficiently solve crime. That was their main point that they wanted to advocate for,” he said. “They really focused on amber alerts and silver alerts and ‘don't you want to find kidnapped kids and elderly people that have wandered off who have Alzheimer's?’”

But Norman’s leaders had questions about privacy and data security and they didn’t like Flock’s answers. “Those were some of the reasons why we ended up not doing it,” Holman said. “Questions about data storage and how long and who has access to it […] you're gathering data on every single car vehicle that goes in and out of the city of Norman, regardless of if they've committed a crime or not, and then that's stored for 30 days on some kind of database? Who has access to it? How secure is it? Those are the questions we have that were kind of deal breakers for us [...] 30 days seemed like a long time to sit on that much data. There were some council members that were like, ‘It should only be an hour. Thirty minutes.’ Why do you need it any longer than that? Why would you need to keep it for 30 days? How is it accessed? How secure is it?”

All of the city council’s nine members said no to Flock. Since then, Holman has watched with some small satisfaction as other cities push back. Cops keep getting into trouble for using the cameras to stalk people, the system makes mistakes, and one of its ex-workers recently told 404 Media that the company lied to him about its business practices.

More than 80 cities across the country have cancelled Flock contracts. None of them are near Norman, which sits on the border of Oklahoma City — a city covered in Flock cameras. According to Holman, the company played this up in its most recent presentation saying that “people would find that out and they’d come to commit crime in Norman because they know that we don’t have Flock cameras.”

But Norman’s city council doesn’t control every square inch of Norman and its surroundings. Despite their best efforts, Flock cameras have gotten in. The city sits in Cleveland county and county leaders approved the installation of 20 cameras for use by the Cleveland County Sheriff’s Office. “There are numerous homeowners associations that use them too,” Holman said. “But the city of Norman government does not. We’re, I guess, the only ones around here that don’t.”

Holman said that Norman’s politics are difficult to explain. “It’s neither liberal nor conservative,” he said. “Our three state reps are Democrats but two of them represent Republican majority voter districts.” He said the tension between the major parties and a healthy swath of independent voters has made citizens engaged with local politics and that constituents have sent a clear anti-Flock message.

“Pretty much everywhere else around here absolutely would just roll over and approve something like this. Nobody would show up and protest it. And if they did, the councils probably wouldn't care. But in Norman it’s a big deal and people can lose re-election over stuff like this and have,” he said.

Holman served on the city council for 12 years before becoming mayor last year. He said one of the issues that turned people against the previous mayor was the purchase of a Bearcat APC for the local police department. In the 20 years after the start of America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, town and city police departments have purchased a lot of military surplus gear from the Pentagon. “Things like a Bearcat would be rubber stamp approved in most cities. In Norman it took them 10 years and [passed] barely by a five-four vote of our previous mayor who I ran against and beat,” Holman said. The APC is still causing controversy in Norman.

Buying an armored car for the police 10 years after it was fashionable to do so is one thing. Private companies installing police cameras is another. “There’s a lot of folks here who are weary about government surveillance, especially giving that over to a private company,” Holman said.

Holman told me he’d been watching the city council meetings like mine where mayors and representatives fight with the voting public about their concerns. “I would really encourage them to listen to the public, listen to the people they represent in their cities and the very valid concerns that folks have about this technology and the private company itself, Flock, and the issues that have arisen with them and why many cities have started to explore pulling out,” he said.

He said that concerned citizens have a right to be worried about the conduct and ethics of a company like Flock. “I always come back to the freedom versus safety thing, this conversation we’ve been having since our founding,” Holman said. “That conversation may not resonate with a mayor like yours. There seems to be a lot of folks that are completely willing to give up all freedom for perceived safety. Well, I guess all crime could be eliminated if you put cameras everywhere, surveillance everywhere, and had drones patrolling the skies. That seems to be the way some folks want to go but what life are we living then?

After Town Bans Flock, Councilmember Crashes Out, Proposes Internet and Phone Ban

A Texas councilmember will propose “a total ban on all cellular and GPS-capable devices for all operations within city limits" and"a total termination of all internet services."

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-08-07 12:00:26

Flock Pitched a Plan To Turn Uber and Lyft Drivers Into Roaming Surveillance Vehicles

Flock planned to use dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers’ vehicles to scan license plates those drivers travelled passed, essentially turning Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles, according to a Flock presentation shared with 404 Media.

The document provides more details on Flock’s planned partnership with Nexar, a popular dashcam company. 404 Media first revealed the intended partnership last August when multiple sources provided information on the plan. The presentation shows Flock was actively pitching this partnership, and its use of Uber and Lyft drivers, to potential customers right around the time 404 Media reported on it.

💡
Do you work for Flock, Axon, or a similar company? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

Flock told 404 Media in an email it never executed the partnership with Nexar. But the presentation still shows Flock’s ambitious plan to conscript rideshare and delivery drivers to collect license plate data for its network. It is not clear whether Uber or Lyft, or drivers working for those apps, would have been aware of the data collection.

“Hundreds of Commercial Business and HOA [home owners associations] in GA [Georgia] are part of the network,” the presentation, written by Flock to present to the Georgia Office of the Attorney General last August, reads. “Plus Nexar partnership which includes 350k Uber/Lyft and other delivery service devices.”

Jason Hunyar, a Dunwoody, Georgia, resident who obtained the presentation through a public records request, shared the document with 404 Media.
Image: screenshot of the presentation.
Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are usually stationary cameras installed on tall poles that constantly scan the license plate, color, make, and brand of every vehicle that drives past. The Nexar partnership would have made those data collection efforts mobile. Axon, the law enforcement contracting giant that also sells ALPR cameras, sells some of its cameras to be installed in police officers’ roaming cars. Vigilant Solutions and the Digital Recognition Network (DRN), two ALPR companies now owned by Motorola, perform similar license plate data collection through cameras in vehicles belonging to repossession agencies.

Nexar sells various different models of dashcams providing front, cabin, and rear views, and already can provide “clear license plate capture with Full HD video,” according to its website. Nexar markets the cameras to rideshare drivers and also “commuters,” “long-distance drivers,” and “casual drivers.”
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In September, 404 Media reported that a hacker broke into Nexar and accessed a database of terabytes of video recordings taken by customers’ cameras. Those included footage of people driving around sensitive Department of Defense locations.

Flock has explored obtaining other unusual datasets too. Last May, 404 Media reported Flock was building a massive people lookup tool that would use hacked data to “jump from LPR to person,” according to leaked audio. Flock scrapped those plans after 404 Media’s coverage and internal pressure.

Neither Uber nor Lyft responded to a request for comment. Neither did Nexar.

In May, 404 Media reported a company called BusPatrol, that has cameras installed in tens of thousands of school buses, plans to turn those cameras into ALPRs and give access to that data to law enforcement.

Flock Decides Not to Use Hacked Data in People Search Tool

The move comes after internal pressure and 404 Media’s reporting.

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-08-06 13:14:07

Cities Are Ditching Flock, Immediately Replacing It With Axon License Plate Readers

A handful of cities across the U.S. have ditched Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras and immediately replaced them with equivalent systems from law enforcement contracting giant Axon, according to local media reports and government documents from around the country. Axon, for example, advertises AI-powered cameras that attach to an existing streetlamp and are designed to completely blend in with their surroundings, and also collects license plate data with cameras installed inside police officers’ patrol vehicles.

💡
Do you work at Axon? Do you know anything else about its technology or expansion? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

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Cities Are Ditching Flock, Immediately Replacing It With Axon License Plate Readers

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-08-05 14:50:49

Cops Used Flock to Track a Man Across State Lines to Create Pretext to Search His Car for Weed

Police in Wisconsin used Flock to determine that a man “travels to Michigan frequently,” where marijuana is legal, then back to Wisconsin, where it is illegal. They then used his travel across state lines as tracked by Flock as part of the probable cause justification to search his car for weed; he was eventually arrested on marijuana possession charges, according to court records reviewed by 404 Media.

The searches came to light in a Wisconsin criminal complaint against Edward Abrams-Phillips, who was wanted for bail jumping on domestic violence charges. But the criminal complaint makes clear that beyond the bail jumping and domestic violence charges, police specifically studied Abrams-Phillips’ interstate travel to create the pretext for searching his car for marijuana. The bail jumping charge was dismissed; Abrams-Phillips was found guilty only of weed possession in the case, according to the court records.
An excerpt from the "Probable Cause" section of the court records.
The complaint explains that Abrams-Phillips was tracked via Flock’s network over the course of the day to determine that he drove from Wisconsin to Michigan, a “known source state for marijuana as it is legal there,” the complaint states, adding that previous Flock hits indicated that he “travels to Michigan frequently.” Police note that, using Flock, they were able to track Abrams-Phillips driving from Wisconsin to Michigan, then back to Wisconsin over the course of several hours, where he was pulled over and arrested. The Flock searches and arrests happened in April 2025.

“The vehicle was observed hitting flock on several occasions to include 41 northbound from Brown Rd, 41NB and County Line in Marinette [Wisconsin], and 41 NB on Bridge St. going into Michigan. Based on prior flock hits, the vehicle travels to Michigan frequently which is a known source State for Marijuana as it is legal there,” the charging document notes. “Around 3:56 p.m., the vehicle was seen on Flock heading southbound on interstate 41 towards Green Bay [Wisconsin]. Deputies made a coordinated effort to intercept the vehicle on 41 from Brown Rd. Deputy Kowalski initiated a traffic stop on the vehicle as the driver matched the description of Edward.”

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After pulling him over, the complaint states that police “detected the odor of what he knew to be raw marijuana coming from inside the vehicle.”

The case is an example of Flock cameras being used to arrest a wanted alleged criminal suspected of committing a violent crime. But it is also an example of police surveillance overreach in that the cameras were specifically used to create a pretext to tack on additional petty crimes based primarily on where a person’s vehicle had traveled. There is a long history of surveillance technology being used in problematic ways in seemingly unsympathetic cases, which eventually creates a slippery slope where the technology can be used against the masses or to enforce against very minor crimes.

It is not difficult to imagine police in one state using Flock to track a resident of their state cross state lines to, for example, obtain an abortion that is legal in one state but not in another. Last year, 404 Media reported on police in Texas who searched more than 80,000 cameras across Flock’s nationwide network for a woman who had a self-administered abortion.

The case is also particularly concerning considering that Flock cameras have popped up outside of weed dispensaries in Michigan. The JARS Cannabis dispensary in Madison Heights, Michigan, went viral this week for putting a “No Flock Zone” sign in front of a Flock camera in the dispensary’s parking lot. “We share our community’s concerns about increased surveillance, which is why we placed the No Flock Zone sign in front of the camera to block its ability to record,” the dispensary said in a public statement. “JARS does not control the camera or have access to any of the data it collects … after we installed our No Flock Zone sign, the city issued a demand letter warning of sanctions if we did not remove it within 48 hours.” But that Flock camera exists specifically to monitor the license plates of people who come and go to the dispensary. It was required by Madison Heights as one of the conditions for giving a dispensary license to JARS: “[The dispensary] must place a FLOCK license plate scanning camera system at the entrance of the customer parking lot prior to commencement of retail sales, and it will give the Madison Heights Police Department unhindered live access to the FLOCK camera, camera footage, and any and all data, which must remain operational at all times.”

Jars cannabis dispensary responded to the Flock camera put up in their parking lot in Michigan 💪 pic.twitter.com/77l1yqA6kA
— Orwell Day (@OrwellDay) July 31, 2026

Flock Audit Reports covering searches done by the Brown County, Wisconsin Sheriff’s Department from April 26, 2025 show that the department used Flock dozens of times that day, often searching thousands of Flock cameras at a time (it is not clear which specific searches were done for Abrams-Phillips’ car, because many of the searches simply list “warrant” or “traffic inv” as the reason).

Tuesday, Flock executives tweeted video examples of their cameras being used to rescue abducted children, in what appears to be a new marketing strategy for the company. “Every child in this video is home tonight because Flock gave officers the right information at the right second,” Flock’s Chief Strategy Officer Rahul Sidhu tweeted. “That’s the mission. That’s the whole company. I wouldn't trade that for anything.”
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Orwell Day (@OrwellDay) on X

^{Orwell Day (X (formerly Twitter))}

404 Media

2026-08-04 14:23:54

‘DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE’: How Cops Are Trying to Hide the Existence of Flock

When cops use Flock to arrest someone in Wapello County, Iowa, they don’t want them to know. A usage policy for the automated license plate reader cameras in the county tells police, in no uncertain terms, to keep them a secret: “DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE,” the policy document reads. “DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.”

The police guidance document is unusual in how clearly it tells police not to mention their Flock use, but it also highlights several important things in the Flock debate. While Flock likes to say that it is a transparent surveillance company and that it cares about “accountability” and “governance,” some of its customers believe its use should be kept secret. Flock is now operating in thousands many cities and towns, and when, how, and why police use the system is wildly inconsistent. Even though Flock does have various auditing and transparency tools, police have their own opinions about what Flock can and should be used for and what the policies for it should be.

It is not just local police in small communities who are creating policies designed to obfuscate Flock usage. Earlier this year, we reported that police in multiple states were being told to be “as vague as permissible” about why they were using Flock because their searches could be obtained using public records requests, and that warning was being shared by the FBI and Department of Justice. Residents of many towns using Flock also say that their cities entered into contracts with Flock with little public oversight, essentially quietly opting them into a nationwide surveillance network without robust public debate.

Wapello County’s “standard operating procedures” document for Flock cameras was created in November of 2025 and was obtained by a 404 Media reader using a public records request and was shared with us. Coincidentally, Wapello County’s largest city is Ottumwa, Iowa, where 404 Media ran a Super Bowl commercial earlier this year. The county has four Flock cameras via a contract it signed with the company in late 2024. The policy further instructs police to be vague in any arrest report, suggesting that they simply call the Flock system “county resources.”

“DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY. If asked a direct question about ALPR usage by someone such as an attorney, tell the truth,” it says. “If it is necessary to explain in a report, it is advised to use language such as ‘Using county resources, I discovered the suspect vehicle was bearing an Iowa plate.’ Treat the ALPR information like you would intelligence. It is simply a lead that you verified and acted on.”
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The guidance to keep Flock use secret is reminiscent—but less extreme—than guidance on some other secretive police technologies. For years, police tried to hide the existence of cell site simulators (popularly known as Stingrays), going as far as to drop criminal cases where it was likely that a judge would expose information about them. Stingrays are essentially fake cell phone towers that can be used to identify the phones of people in a specific area.

In the public records request, Sheriff Don Phillips said “there is no need” to tell people about the use of Flock.

“Our policy requires deputies to check the license plate to make sure the correct plate is accurate and the information as to an arrest warrant, stolen vehicle, stolen plate or missing person is correct,” he said. “There is no need to tell them about our investigative methods or sources, such as the camera system, because the information is verified by the deputy running the license plate. It is common practice for law enforcement to refrain from disclosing investigative methods and sources to prevent criminals from learning how to circumvent them.”

Phillips did not respond to a request for comment.

Surreal Stingray Secrecy: Uncovering the FBI’s Surveillance Tech Secrecy Agreements | ACLU

The public has a right to know whether the FBI is forcing law enforcement agencies to keep information on invasive surveillance technology a secret.

^{Adeline Lee (American Civil Liberties Union)}

404 Media

2026-08-03 17:13:24

‘Own the Narrative’: Leaked Flock Guide Shows How It Teaches Cops to Promote Its Tech

404 Media has obtained a coaching guide that Flock surveillance gives to police about “how to speak to city councils about public safety technology.” The handbook highlights how Flock and police team up to convince cities to buy and keep its automated license plate reader technology, even when there is widespread public opposition to it, and encourages police to “own the narrative before someone else does” by championing the technology before citizens can oppose it during public comment periods.

The PDF guide notes that the general public and cities now “increasingly expect transparency, oversight, and accountability alongside public safety outcomes,” and tells police to not argue with people who believe that Flock’s license plate readers are “mass surveillance.”

“One of the most common questions agencies hear today is whether license plate recognition (LPR) technology constitutes mass surveillance. Many leaders instinctively respond by attempting to refute the claim. Flock's Jamie Hudson recommends a different approach,” the guide reads.

“Don’t avoid the concept of mass surveillance because you’re not going to convince opponents that it’s not,” the company recommends. Flock tells law enforcement agencies they need to try to convince city council and city managers that the technology is worthwhile before meetings with the public occur; that they need to have a “carefully scripted presentation” ready to go; and that police need to say they want Flock because they want to keep the community safe: “You care about your community. That’s why you’re bringing this in.”
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Flock began offering this guide as part of a broader attempt to coach police on how to push back against criticism of its policies and security practices, many of which 404 Media has investigated and shed light on. These include the fact that Flock data was regularly making its way to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), often in violation of sanctuary city and state laws; that Flock was used to search 83,000 cameras nationwide for a woman who had an abortion in Texas; and that Flock has been used by police to stalk people and surveil protesters. These investigations and broader concern over the surveillance state have led many cities to hold city council meetings to reconsider their Flock contracts, and this Flock-produced guide is an attempt to help police shape the narrative in a way that will either convince cities to buy Flock or to keep their contracts.

The guide is associated with a Flock webinar for police called “How to Speak to City Councils: Meeting the Moment with Confidence,” which included modules on “how to address misinformation with clarity.” After public opposition late last year, the company began to offer Q&A sessions with its CEO, Garrett Langley, for city council members, police, and mayors to address what Flock described as an “era of unprecedented misinformation.”

“The recent headlines about our company are largely a result of this environment,” the company told cities.

“Opponents have a very carefully scripted narrative. They come prepared. You should also have a carefully scripted presentation that addresses those concerns ahead of time,” the guide says. “The agencies that navigate these conversations successfully rarely wait until a council meeting to educate stakeholders. They brief city managers early. They meet with council members before votes occur. They share policies proactively and answer questions before public comment periods become the first introduction to the program.”
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The guide also tells police that they can convince city councils that Flock is worth the monetary cost by conveniently not focusing on how much the cameras cost, but by “reframing the financial discussion itself” to focus on “the cost of unresolved crime.” Flock also writes that much of the opposition to its technology is happening because people “do not understand how it works or how it is governed.” This idea is one that has been regularly repeated by Langley over the last several months.

Surveillance companies regularly try to get police to act as quasi salespeople and spokespeople for their companies, pitting a private company and taxpayer-funded law enforcement on one side and citizens on the other. “For years, surveillance vendors like Flock Safety have shaped policy debates cities are supposed to run independently — staging council ‘prep calls’ and exploiting a basic asymmetry: the vendor controls the facts, and city staff are rarely positioned to challenge them,” Sarah T. Hamid, director of strategic campaigns at the Electronic Frontier Foundation told 404 Media after reviewing the guide. “The financial interest is obvious. Flock isn’t just selling surveillance, it’s scripting the public case for buying it. Because Flock treats public trust as a messaging problem rather than a governance outcome, that script keeps officials focused on ‘accountability’ in the abstract instead of the concrete harms and documented abuses its network has already enabled.”

404 Media has watched numerous city council meetings around the country where police talk about how Flock is a critical law enforcement system for them; in many cases, a police chief will speak about Flock and then introduce a Flock employee to give a presentation about the surveillance system. On Monday, 404 Media published an interview with a former Flock government affairs manager who regularly pitched the technology to cities at public meetings. An activist who has been pushing back against Flock in their community and who shared the guide document with 404 Media said that they have regularly seen the strategies suggested by Flock deployed in city council meetings they have attended and watched. 404 Media agreed to keep the activist anonymous to protect them from retaliation.

“I think this document shows a coordinated effort from Flock Safety to compel law enforcement agencies to convince our elected leaders to represent their interests as a company rather than the interests of concerned citizens,” they said. “I have watched many meetings locally in my city and my state and across the country, and you can see the techniques used in this ebook in the presentations given by law enforcement. Pivoting conversations away from concerns about mass surveillance and directing them towards procedure and governance is a vehicle that's used to downplay the concerns of privacy-minded citizens. We have every right to expect our elected leaders to listen to us, and it's very common to see city councils vote with a supermajority in favor of approving Flock contracts despite standing-room only attendance at city council meetings with little to no public support for this product.”

The guide specifically highlights several supposed success stories in which communities had very real concerns about Flock but ultimately decided not to get rid of the technology. For example, it highlights how Flock was able to get a vote in favor of its technology in Oakland, California, despite it being “one of the most scrutinized public safety technology debates in the state,” with “more than 140 public comments” and opposition from the city’s Privacy Advisory Commission: “The conversation shifted when officials stopped asking the public to trust the technology and started showing how the technology could be audited, reviewed, and held accountable.”

It also tells the story of Richmond, California, which allowed its Flock contract to temporarily lapse after the city’s cameras were included in the company’s national lookup tool. City officials there worried that their cameras’ data would be accessed by ICE, in violation of California and local law. “After concerns emerged around data sharing and sanctuary city policies, the city's program was paused and subjected to intense public scrutiny,” the Flock guide says. “Rather than relying on generalized claims about effectiveness, department leadership presented two and a half years of local results, including 274 arrests and 259 vehicle recoveries connected to the program. The council ultimately voted 4-3 to reinstate the system.”

Flock did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Flock Removes States From National Lookup Tool After ICE and Abortion Searches Revealed

Following 404 Media’s reporting and in light of new legislation, automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company Flock has stopped agencies reaching into cameras in California, Illinois, and Virginia.

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-08-03 14:02:31

Why a Flock Worker Quit: ‘They Lied’

This is an adaption of a podcast interview 404 Media recorded with Jonathan Paz, a former Flock employee who is now running running for Congress in Massachusetts’ 5th District. Check out the whole thing here on YouTube.

Jonathan Paz was initially nervous when he started working at the surveillance company Flock. It was his first tech job. But he was interested in the company’s mission. Flock’s cameras, which constantly scan the license plate of every vehicle driving past, were for finding missing people. Staff at the company were able to solve real issues.

In his job as a government affairs manager a couple of years ago, Paz represented Flock in public hearings, with the goal of getting a city to purchase Flock cameras. These sorts of hearings are happening on a near constant basis all across the country, as cities and towns participate in a national conversation about whether they want Flock cameras in their community or not.

“My job was to make sure that we were not only defending the company, but also representing the product as best as possible and making sure that we can get approved at council,” Paz said. He would get flown out to different cities and towns to help get Flock across the finish line. He was the break-in-case-of-emergency button.

In one case, Paz went to a place that was planning on purchasing Flock cameras but there was a lot of community pushback. Those people did not want these cameras in their community. Paz realized his job was to “make sure that this resistance doesn't become a vote reflected in the vote of the council.”

“That's kind of what started unraveling for me very quickly: this facade that we were helping these democratically elected boards” represent the people who voted for them.
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Before Flock, Paz had a career in social justice work, including as an activist, union organizer, and an elected city councilor in Waltham, Massachusetts, he said. He focused in part on municipal broadband. At the time he held some “techno optimism, that maybe technology can be the answer to some of these existential crises of our time,” he said.

He ran for mayor but didn’t win. After that, he went to the 2023 National League of Cities conference in Atlanta, Georgia, a large meeting for municipal officials. Flock is headquartered in Atlanta.

This is where a Flock representative pitched him the idea of joining the company, Paz said. To him, Flock’s technology made sense. Flock sold cameras, and they helped find missing people. It definitely wasn’t part of some broader surveillance apparatus.

He joined Flock and found the company had a startup culture. Things moved fast and the people were “brilliant.”

💡
Do you work at Flock or Axon? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

At the time, Paz thought Flock “had a deep respect for civil rights and liberties.” There was an emphasis on catering to the values of whatever municipality or agency they happened to be working with. “We were honoring and respecting the wishes of the people,” Paz thought. His coworkers at Flock would speak about the company’s mission and how it was helping to solve crime.

Then things changed. Beyond Paz’s evolving feelings around his own job’s purpose, 404 Media revealed how local cops were performing Flock searches for Immigration and Customs and Enforcement (ICE).

“Throughout this whole time, I'm expressing my concern within the company,” Paz, who also happens to be the son of immigrants, said. “Do we work with ICE? Are we working with ICE? Are there plans to work with ICE? And throughout the whole time, the company line was ‘we don't work with ICE.’”

Journalists around the country followed our reporting, including 9NEWS in Denver which found evidence Customs and Border Protection (CBP) had direct access to Flock’s cameras. At the time, Flock strongly denied such direct access by federal agencies existed. Eventually, Flock came clean: CBP did have direct access, as part of a pilot program. So did ICE.
playlist.megaphone.fm?p=TBIEA2…
404 Media then reported the Secret Service and the Navy’s criminal investigation division had access too.

“That was what I was sold and lied to about,” Paz said. “I didn't know that there were these mechanisms inside the company that were essentially fighting to get this pilot to happen.”

Come July 2025, Paz quit Flock. Paz said he “rejected tens of thousands in company equity and a severance package from Flock.” After leaving Flock, he founded an organization to help pay rent, food, and legal fees for people impacted by ICE’s mass deportation effort. Now he is running for Congress in Massachusetts’ 5th District.

404 Media asked Flock for comment on what exactly workers in Paz’s previous role do when it comes to helping convince cities to buy Flock. A company spokesperson told 404 Media in an email “Our conversations with communities are valuable and give us direct feedback from the people we serve. That input has helped us enhance product controls and refine our positions on important matters of public policy.”

The statement added: “We will continue investing in public engagement and continue to make improvements to Flock based on our dialogue with communities nationwide. The decision to adopt Flock technology rests solely with each community.”

Jonathan Paz: A Fighter for the Working Class

Profitez des vidéos et de la musique que vous aimez, mettez en ligne des contenus originaux, et partagez-les avec vos amis, vos proches et le monde entier.

^{Jonathan Paz (YouTube)}

404 Media

2026-07-28 16:07:52

'I Would Never Do This To You:' Protesting Flock, Arizona Man Presents Plan to Surveil Government Officials

On July 20, Jacob Petrosky stood in front of the Casa Grande, Arizona City Council during a public comment session and made an announcement.

“I've spent the last several months talking to people all over Casa Grande, and one thing keeps coming up: Safety. So, today I'm excited to announce a new company called Shepherd Safety,” he said. “Our mission is simple. Keep government officials and their families safe.” It would be no different than how the city monitors its citizens using Flock cameras, he said; he planned to launch satellites that would use AI to monitor “where government officials go, where they stop, who they meet with, and when they return home.”

He said he’d already started compiling profiles on their vehicles, spouses vehicles, children's vehicles, and planned to combine that data with Bluetooth signals, advertising IDs, and commercial data sources, “so our authorized users can replay the movements of every government official and their immediate family,” he said. Local businesses would be invited to join the network, to “protect” officials while they shop, eat at restaurants, and move around the city.

After laying out his plan and its benefits for the government officials before him, Petrosky revealed that it was all satire. “I would never do this to you,” he said to the council members. “Could I? Probably. But I wouldn't because it's wrong. Just like what you guys are doing to us is wrong.”

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Petrosky told me he never expected or intended to be the face of opposition to Flock cameras in his small town. And the clip, which has since gone viral on social media, only shows one angle of one moment that’s part of a much longer fight.

Casa Grande City Council unanimously approved a 10 year, $10 million contract with Flock last year, and since then, Petrosky has spoken against the partnership several times at city council meetings. “You know, I'm actually a little bit embarrassed by the video. I did not feel good about it,” he told me. “The looks... You don't get to see the looks on [council members’] faces. They didn't understand it was satire in the beginning until the end, and the looks on their faces were like, we hate you and we're gonna get you. They were not happy, they were very upset.”

What Happened When Flock Came to My Town
My small town in South Carolina will soon have more Flock cameras than police officers.
404 MediaMatthew Gault

Casa Grande City Council members did not immediately respond to 404 Media’s request for comment.

Petrosky said he’s not trying to be “a troll,” but after asking the council to consider the invasion of privacy they were inflicting on constituents, including asking them to consider putting Flock data behind a warrant, his patience was wearing thin. “So it didn't feel great, but I wanted it to sink in,” he said. “I'm not looking to go viral. I don't want to be an online personality, but what I really just want is maybe just a little bit of privacy.”

Petrosky said he first noticed Flock cameras going up in Casa Grande last year. It wasn’t until then that he started getting civically involved. “I registered to vote this year. I'm very transparent about that. I could care less about city council or politics or any of that. I'm very much a nerd,” he said. “They did this deal last year, and then all of a sudden, like 200 cameras appeared in our city, pretty much almost overnight. It was really crazy. In fact, they deployed them so quickly that it freaked me out.” He realized that he couldn’t enter or leave his neighborhood on a paved road without being tracked on a Flock camera.

Petrosky launched a website, DeFlockCG, along with a petition that asks Casa Grande residents to voice specific demands, from limited third-party access to camera data and repercussions for abuse of the system, to removal of Flock from the city altogether. Almost 900 people have signed the petition so far.

Local news outlet Pinal Central reported earlier this month that a public records request revealed that the city has installed about 140 of the planned 200 cameras as of late June, with half being license plate reader cameras while the other half are pan-tilt-zoom cameras.

The city’s website about its Safe Cities Initiative says that in addition to assisting in solving crimes and increasing transparency for the public, the initiative and cameras are intended to “prevent crime before it occurs.” The website only mentions Flock in reference to using the Flock OS system to connect cameras and technologies, but links to a “transparency portal” and how to register privately-owned cameras into the network go directly to Flock’s own web pages. On Flock’s website highlighting the Casa Grande partnership, the company quotes Casa Grande Police Chief Mark McCrory: "In the past, investigators relied on slow, manual efforts to gather video evidence. Now, with registered cameras securely integrated into our Real Time Information Center, we can access vital footage faster—turning information into actionable intelligence when it matters most."

Flock ‘Objects to Our Removing Their Equipment’: Emails Reveal Why a Town Put Bags Over Its Flock Cameras
“For the time being, if you or someone on your crew has availability to secure black plastic bags (or something else) over the cameras, that would be great.”
404 MediaJason Koebler

In May, Casa Grande City Council voted unanimously to give police access to elementary school cameras through the Flock partnership.

Last week, a 404 Media investigation revealed that police departments around the country have used Flock cameras at least hundreds of times to search for specific people with specific characteristics, like “heavy-set male with a black and white hat” or “person on skateboard,” and these searches sometimes reference people’s race or signs of their political affiliation.

Several cities and small communities around the country have canceled their contracts with Flock, citing privacy concerns and the potential for abuse. Petrosky said he primarily wants the city to require a warrant for accessing the data collected by cameras.

Petrosky knows his “announcement” at the council meeting was absurd, but the absurdity was the point. “It's incredibly stupid, and then it's also just incredibly inappropriate. The thought of tracking and associating them with their children and their spouses and all of it,” he said. He would prefer to keep to himself, and doesn’t relish these moments in front of the council, the entire town, the police department, and now, the whole internet. “Never in my wildest imagination would I ever be in a position like this. I don't want to be famous. I just want this to go away. I want these things to at least just be put behind a warrant.”

Map shows cities that have rejected, deactivated Flock cameras

Cities across the US are rejecting Flock license plate readers, canceling contracts, and deactivating systems over privacy fears.

^{Amanda Greenwood (Newsweek)}

404 Media

2026-07-23 20:12:32

Flock's CEO Says its ALPRs Don't Do Video After Repeatedly Announcing They Can

After the Los Angeles Police Department allowed its contract with Flock to expire, the surveillance company’s CEO, Garrett Langley, told local news that people don’t understand how its technology works, and that its automated license plate readers (ALPR) only take a “static picture” of a car. “The technology is really simple,” he told ABC7. "A car drives by, we take a picture. It's a static picture of a car, and then we read the license plate. That's what the technology is—it's actually not that complicated, it's pretty simple."

But for the last year, Flock has been marketing a new upgrade that allows “all” of its ALPRs to record live video. Langley is either dramatically underselling what Flock’s technology can do while saying that people don’t understand it, or Flock has quietly rolled back a major product feature without telling anyone. (Update: after the publication of this piece, a Flock spokesperson said Flock has discontinued the feature for law enforcement agencies.)

Flock has not been quiet about this live video upgrade; its salespeople have pitched the upgrade to cities, and the company has mentioned it in numerous blog posts (though it recently deleted one of them), and Langley even spoke about the capabilities with Forbes last year, suggesting cops could pull video in real time from its ALPR cameras: “We will just open up the five nearest cameras in real time and say, here's what's happening right now,” Langley said.
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In June of last year, a Flock blog post called “Why video is the missing link in your LPR program,” the company wrote “All existing Flock LPRs will soon stream live video and capture clips with a free, optional software update. No new hardware, no permits, no extra cost. Same lens, same angle and field-of-view as the LPR. See basic video clips for every plate read. Zero lift for your team. Free and optional to opt in.”

The blog post describes several potential use cases, and different setups that police officers could use, which include adding a separate video camera to the poles that Flock cameras are installed on but also, crucially, includes the fact that all Flock ALPR cameras are capable of taking video: “Fixed live video is coming to all LPR cameras, free by end of 2025.”

And, in a now-deleted product launch blog, Flock wrote “LPR Cameras Can Become Video Cameras,” and added it was a “move that will transform the largest network of LPR cameras in the nation.”

“Flock customers don’t have to do a thing or pay a thing,” said Flock’s Chief Strategy Officer Bailey Quintrell in the blog post. “This will be a no-cost software update we push over the cloud.”

Text messages obtained using a public records request by Jason Hunyar, an activist in Dunwoody, Georgia, show that cops in Dunwoody turned on this feature. The text messages are between John Watson, a Flock employee, and a Dunwoody police officer from January of this year.

“Are y’all able to live stream LPR video yet?,” Watson asks.

“Yes,” the officer says.

“When did they turn that on and how has it been. And who turned it on?” Watson responds.

“It’s been about a month and it’s pretty cool feature,” the officer says. “Small angles but cool for incidents if needed. I’ve been working with Vijay [Dhamija, Flock’s Director of Product] on it.”

“Gotcha. Any stability issues?,” Watson asks.

“Not that I have noticed,” the officer responds.

The Flock spokesperson said, “This was not a broad rollout. Five law enforcement agencies participated in a limited pilot to test live video on select LPR devices; the LAPD was not among them.”

“In March, Flock discontinued the feature for law enforcement agencies, and it is no longer active at any of the five participating agencies. The pilot provided live video only and did not include recording or stored-video playback,” the spokesperson added.

Update: this piece has been updated to include comment from Flock.

City Learns Flock Accessed Cameras in Children's Gymnastics Room as a Sales Pitch Demo, Renews Contract Anyway

Residents of Dunwoody, Georgia are furious about the city's surveillance contract with Flock. Do their elected officials care?

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-07-23 14:51:32

The Rise of Anti-Flock Influencers Who Make Things Up for Clout

A little over a month ago, the former American Idol contestant, country musician, and Instagram influencer Noah Orion appears to have learned about the surveillance company Flock. “Cities are now covering Flock cameras with trash bags,” Orion narrated over an Instagram post aggregating a 404 Media report. “It’s also pretty wild that we’ve just dropped stickers that say ‘Fuck Flock’ on them and it’s pretty cool that it’s coincidental that the sticker’s outside diameter is the same size as the average camera lens on a Flock camera,” he adds, showing a mockup of an AI-generated sticker featuring a surveillance camera that is not a Flock camera.

Orion had never posted on Instagram about Flock before then. But, since that post, Orion has posted dozens of reels about Flock, apparently at great personal risk to himself. A July 8 post features an image of a printed out “CEASE AND DESIST” letter purportedly sent to Orion by Dan Haley, Flock’s head of legal affairs. “It has come to the attention of Flock Group Inc. that you have engaged in conduct involving the unauthorized dissemination of photographs, videos, memes, screenshots, or other visual materials in a manner that encourages your fans to claim and place stickers that constitute a rude and unusual manner towards our company and association. You are hereby instructed to immediately cease and desist from any further use of such materials […] any further demeaning actions or posts will result in legal action. Failure to comply with this demand may result in Flock Group inc. [sic] to persecute you and your organization to the fullest extent of the law.”

The post has 73,000 likes and has been viewed millions of times. Since that post, Orion has posted the same letter 16 separate times on Instagram, and is now posting about almost nothing besides Flock. On Tuesday, he posted a reel stating “I could go to jail soon, and I am not afraid of that. I am pushing a movement against Flock cameras.” In that video, he said he’s starting a “bail fund” in case he’s arrested and goes to jail. Collectively, these posts and videos have hundreds of thousands of likes and millions of views.

But the cease-and-desist is not real; it is a wholesale fabrication created by the influencer for attention, likes, and clout. He is at zero risk of persecution or arrest for speaking out about Flock (though he may be at risk for forging a fake cease-and-desist letter.) In the meantime, Orion has gotten more than 30,000 new followers in the last month according to the Instagram tracking website NotJustAnalytics, a period in which he has posted essentially only about Flock and, primarily, about his stickers and his cease-and-desist letter.

This constant focus on his apparent legal trouble is a relatively typical pattern for Orion; before Flock, he was posting endlessly about how his modified bus with massive speakers was going to be impounded by the authorities. Before that, he was talking about how he was going to be evicted from the space in which he modified the bus.

Over the last few months, we have seen the rise of various anti-Flock influencers and activists, and increased scrutiny from journalists, YouTubers, and independent researchers. Content about Flock has become quite popular on social media, and the vast majority of posts are from well-meaning people who are amplifying real reporting and real — if occasionally exaggerated or slightly misconstrued — information about one of the most invasive mass surveillance companies in the country. Alongside this has come lots of viral posts that either slightly misunderstand or oversell what Flock is doing or is capable of, or get, for example, the exact mechanics of how ICE may obtain Flock data wrong.

On balance, most of these posts are at least directionally correct. There is room in the movement against mass surveillance for hyperbole, satire, comedy, stunts, and misunderstandings done by well-meaning people, especially if there is a broader point.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Noah (@noahorion42)

That is not what Orion and some of his copycats are doing, however. Most charitably, Orion is making people aware of Flock and could be making people more likely to do more research into the company or is making them more likely to take political or direct action to prevent surveillance. He’s a bro spreading the word, and perhaps his heart is in the right place. But, basically, he is making shit up to make himself and his country music career more famous by creating and sowing disinformation in a space where there are dozens of journalists and influencers working hard for more transparency, and positioning himself as being somehow at legal or criminal risk when people who are doing actual needle-moving work struggle to stand out or are actually being threatened. On every post, Orion tries to give away stickers and tells people to comment “Fuck Flock” in order to get them. This is a tactic to game the Instagram algorithm with engagement; Orion has set up a bot to automatically message anyone who comments on his posts with links to his online store which has a variety of free stickers, paid merch, and a “bail fund in case I go to jail.”

Flock and its lawyers have sent real cease-and-desist letters or otherwise threatened the creators of both DeFlock, an open-source project to map Flock cameras, and HaveIBeenFlocked, a database of Flock searches done by cops around the country. Alongside reporting by 404 Media and local journalists, DeFlock has led directly to the massive, decentralized, grassroots movement of residents in small towns and big cities pressuring their city councils to end their Flock contracts. Activists and journalists using HaveIBeenFlocked have uncovered numerous cases of police abuse and ICE surveillance that has led directly to firings and arrests, policy changes, and canceled contracts. The strategies deployed by Flock against these sites are far more sophisticated and scary than the obviously bullshit cease-and-desist letter fabricated by Orion.

Flock went after Cris van Pelt, the creator of HaveIBeenFlocked, by repeatedly trying to get his web hosting revoked by its provider by claiming the site both violated the company’s intellectual property rights and by saying that the site “poses an immediate threat to public safety and exposes law enforcement officers to danger.” Flock directly warned police about this website, which led different divisions of the FBI to warn law enforcement about the site, squarely putting a target on the site. Through a third-party law firm, Flock separately threatened DeFlock by sending a cease-and-desist to Will Freeman, the creator of the site. To fend off that cease-and-desist, Freeman had to get representation from the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Flock’s CEO, Garrett Langley, called DeFlock a “terroristic organization” in an on-camera interview with Forbes. After that interview repeatedly went viral, Langley finally apologized in a second interview with Forbes earlier this month. These are actual threats, against people actually doing the work.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Noah (@noahorion42)

It is hard to see how Orion shouting nonsense into a camera to his 800,000 followers benefits anyone but himself; after his first few viral posts, various other Instagram accounts began posting fake Flock cease-and-desist letters to promote, for example, “The Saturday Salon,” an event series in Orange County, California that largely promotes its events via AI-generated posters (Saturday Salon also created a fake Palantir cease-and-desist in January).

Benn Jordan, a researcher and YouTuber who has uncovered various Flock security flaws and has become one of the most important voices speaking out against Flock, made a video about Orion’s fake cease-and-desists in which he said “Can y'all just eat Tide Pods or something and stop making this fight even harder than it already is?”

“If you get sued for doing this, I have absolutely no sympathy for you, because if somebody made a fake cease-and-desist or lawsuit letter from me and forged my name and posted it online for attention making me look bad, I would sue the fuck out of them,” Jordan said. “More importantly, Flock frames me like Jake Paul, like a hyperbolic YouTuber who’s just doing magic tricks and making things up to make the company look bad for my own personal gain, and by doing so, they’re able to squash and make it seem risky to read real reports about security vulnerabilities, or Fourth Amendment right violations. And I can guaran-fuckin-tee you that they will use these fake letters as an example to lump in with actual, meaningful critical research about police surveillance.”

Haley, Flock’s chief legal officer, told me in a LinkedIn message that “of course they are fake.” Haley added via a spokesperson that “We’re aware of at least two forged letters circulating on the internet, including this one [referring to Orion’s], that purport to be cease-and-desist letters from our legal department. To be clear: these letters did not come from me or from anyone at Flock. Flock welcomes and encourages public debate about our technology. We have not and would not seek to discourage, prevent, or prohibit such discussion and debate. In fact, we would be happy to participate in any such discussions the group in question might host in the future."

Orion did not respond to an Instagram message I sent him asking about the fake cease-and-desist letter.

Police Unmask Millions of Surveillance Targets Because of Flock Redaction Error

Flock is going after a website called HaveIBeenFlocked.com that has collated public records files released by police.

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-07-22 14:03:02

Flock ‘Objects to Our Removing Their Equipment’: Emails Reveal Why a Town Put Bags Over Its Flock Cameras

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YOU'RE INVITED! 404 Media is turning three, and we're throwing TWO separate events in NYC to celebrate: A live taping of the podcast with a special night of talks on Sept. 3, and an open-bar bash on Sept. 4. Subscribers at the Supporter level get free and discounted access to both events. Not a 404 Media Supporter yet? Sign up, and get all the party details here.

For weeks, Verona, Wisconsin tried to get Flock to remove the three automated license plate cameras that its city council had voted to stop using. Flock told city employees not to remove the cameras, and a Flock employee told city officials that they were unsure whether the cameras could be remotely disabled, which led the town to decide to put black plastic trash bags over them until Flock eventually removed the cameras itself, according to emails obtained using a public records request by 404 Media.

The emails give insight into the process cities face while deFlocking themselves after voting not to renew a contract with the AI surveillance company. As we’ve previously reported, multiple cities around the country have decided to put black trash bags over their Flock cameras while they wait for them to be removed; this is in part because, until the cameras are physically removed by Flock, cities are unsure whether they have the legal right to remove the cameras themselves and are not sure whether they can disable their recording operations. The emails show Verona city officials telling each other that they had made multiple requests to Flock to have the cameras removed, and show a work order from Flock in which the cameras were set to have maintenance performed on them rather than being removed.

In February, Verona mayor Luke Diaz told the Wisconsin Examiner that Flock didn’t remove the cameras even after several requests: “They weren’t removing them,” he said. “We kind of looked at the contract, talked it over amongst staff, and the thing we felt most comfortable with was just covering them so they could stop spying on people … I’m 100% certain that they were still working,” even after the contract ended, he said. The emails obtained by 404 Media give more insight into what was happening behind the scenes, and why it took so long to get Flock to remove the cameras.

A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media that the discrepancy occurred because Verona voted to not renew its contract rather than outright canceling it mid-term. It is clear from emails obtained by 404 Media, however, that Verona city officials wanted the cameras to come down as quickly as possible.
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On November 10, the Verona Common Council voted to terminate its contract with Flock because of reporting from 404 Media and others that showed Flock was regularly sharing surveillance information with federal agencies, often because local police departments were using the Flock system on behalf of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. At the November 10 meeting, Verona Common Council members repeatedly said that they trusted the Verona police department, but not Flock: “Unfortunately, Flock is not trustworthy, no matter what kind of guarantees they have given you,” Verona council president Mara Helmke told Verona police officials at that meeting. “I just don’t trust it … Flock has assured us that our data is ours, right? But we can’t trust that. We simply can’t,” alderman Spencer Harrison said.

The day after the meeting, alderman Beth Tucker Long asked city employees to tell Flock that the contract would not be renewed. “Per the Council’s vote last night, notice of non-renewal of the Flock contract should be sent to Flock today,” she wrote. “Please copy me on the notice or send me a copy if it has already been sent. This is time-sensitive as the contract auto-renews for two years if non-renewal notice is not received 30 days before the December 14th auto-renew date. Additionally, please let me know when Flock will be removing their equipment. Are we able to turn off or disable the Flock cameras in the meantime?”

By mid January, the cameras had still not been disabled or removed, which was noticed by a Verona resident.

“I hope you are well. I spoke to you awhile back about the Flock cameras in Verona and also spoke at the council meeting that evening. I applaud the vote to discontinue the cameras,” one resident emailed a city councilmember on January 15, more than two months after the city voted not to renew its Flock contract. “However, I’ve noticed that at least two cameras (by Costco and by the park and ride) are still in place. Are they operating? My understanding was that the vote was to discontinue their use. While there’s maybe a delay in removal, the cameras should at least be covered by an opaque bag to ensure that they are not being operated (perhaps unknowingly) by Flock.”

On January 16, Flock sent the city an automated alert saying it was going to “replace equipment” at one of its camera locations. Police chief David Dresser took this to mean that it was going to remove the equipment: “I’m hoping below is the work order to uninstall the cameras,” he wrote. “We have asked them to uninstall the cameras at least twice. We will follow up with Flock if the cameras remain after next week.” This message was forwarded to Mayor Luke Diaz, who said “Is there anything that would prevent us from just taking down the cameras and holding them at City Hall until Flock picks them up? I’m at the point where I think it’d just be easier to just take them down ourselves.”
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At this point, the city’s mayor, Luke Diaz, began instructing city employees to plan to remove the cameras. “Do we have the capability to remove the Flock cameras and put them in a location where they could be picked up? I know about the work order from Flock, but Mayor Luke would like them removed now if possible,” one of his staffers wrote to city employees. A public works employee responded and said “We would have time tomorrow to remove the cameras and solar panels and store them here at public works. I will need how many and their locations, also let me know if we are removing the poles or post they are mounted on, those may need to wait til spring.”

After hearing that the city could remove the cameras itself, Diaz wrote, “Great. I don’t see anything in the contract that would prevent us from removing them. Also, the contract is now expired anyhow.”

But before the cameras could be removed, a police officer asked the city to hold off on removing the cameras until after he had a call with Flock, in which he said they would give the company a one-week deadline to remove the cameras. “If they object to us taking them down ourselves, I will demand they remotely disable the equipment immediately and remove the cameras themselves as quickly as they can. I’ll inform them we will remove their equipment regardless of their objections by the end of next week if they cannot remove everything by then,” the officer wrote.

The same police officer updated the city the next day, saying that Flock did object to the city removing the cameras, and stating that he wasn’t sure if they could be remotely disabled: “I just finished up my meeting with Flock Safety. They did object to our removing their equipment; however, he assured me he was going to put in an expedited removal order on the cameras. The rep I spoke with has never had to do that before, so he was unfamiliar with the process, but he said he would update me by 9am tomorrow morning and hopefully be able to give me a timeframe for their removal. I also requested immediate termination of the camera network via remote, and I received the same answer. He was not sure if that was possible or how to do it, but he would explore that option and get back to me tomorrow by 9am.”

“I think, for the time being, if you or someone on your crew has availability to secure black plastic bags (or something else) over the cameras, that would be great,” he added.

“We’ll bag them tomorrow,” public works responded.

“When they’re bagged, please take a photo and send it to me. One of the alders is receiving daily emails,” a city administrator said.

“The cameras are covered. See the pictures attached,” public works wrote on January 23.

Even after all of this back-and-forth, Flock sent the city multiple automated emails about “work orders.” One of the emails stated that a work order had been canceled and that, “after further investigation of the issue, the Work Order has been resolved. Your device should not be functioning normally.” Another email, called “Work Order Created,” listed that two of the city’s three cameras were slated for “equipment removal,” but the other camera was slated for “regular maintenance.” Flock’s work order stated that the company performs removals “within two-three weeks, but service times may vary … thanks so much, and stay safe.”

In an email sent by one police officer to other police officers after the baggings called “RIP Flock Cameras,” officers were informed not to be alarmed by the bagged cameras. “If you see black plastic bags (or similar) covering our Flock cameras, they were put up by our DPW department, so there is no need for you to take any action or report them as covered or vandalized. Obviously, after the cameras are covered, they will not be reading plates. Flock will be removing the cameras at the earliest opportunity,” the officer said. “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Flock eventually removed the cameras on February 4. A Flock spokesperson told 404 Media that “Flock Safety leases its cameras to customers and manages the installation, maintenance, and removal of the hardware as part of its service. Under Flock's customer agreements, all camera hardware remains the property of Flock and is removed when an agreement expires or is terminated.”

The company added that it has a “defined offboarding process,” and that cameras can be remotely deactivated. “Our team works directly with the agency to schedule the physical removal of the hardware. If an agency requests that cameras be turned off before they are removed, Flock can remotely deactivate them at any time.”

“Regarding Verona specifically, the City Council voted not to renew its agreement with Flock rather than canceling it mid contract,” they added. “The city had two agreements, one for two LPRs and one for one LPR, which expired in April 2026 and July 2026, and after the agency requested that the cameras be removed, Flock coordinated their removal in accordance with its standard offboarding process. Mid-term contract cancellations follow a separate process.”

Membership

404 Media is an independent media company founded by technology journalists Jason Koebler, Emanuel Maiberg, Samantha Cole, and Joseph Cox.

^{Outpost Staff (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-07-16 13:56:48

How Cops Use Flock to Track People, Not Cars

Police departments around the country have used Flock cameras at least hundreds of times to search for specific people, not cars, using searches such as “heavy-set male with a black and white hat,” “person on skateboard,” and “person wearing orange vest and construction hat,” according to data reviewed by 404 Media. Sometimes searches reference a target’s race or signs of their political affiliation.

The searches highlight that while most people associate Flock cameras with scanning license plates and tracking vehicles, some of the cameras are also capable of following the movements of particular people or groups of people. Flock’s nationwide network of cameras lets police officers in one state search for a vehicle across many other states at once; the people searches do a similar thing, typically on a smaller scale, sometimes querying many hundreds of cameras at once. These are called “FreeForm” searches, and allow cops to use Flock’s system as though they would use a search engine, with Flock’s AI and image recognition interpreting what footage and which people are relevant to a police officer’s search.

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How Cops Use Flock to Track People, Not Cars

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-07-13 17:18:26

LAPD Regularly Pulled Over Innocent People Because License Plate Readers Flagged Their Cars As Stolen

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) announced it will let its surveillance contract with automated license plate reader company (ALPR) Flock expire, becoming the largest police department in the country to drop its contract. Notably, the decision came after an audit of ALPR technology found that, in a two-month period, the LAPD had improperly "investigated" 161 people whose cars were flagged as stolen in the LAPD’s ALPR system but were not actually stolen.

The news that LAPD pulled over 161 innocent people in two months because of improper tagging in the department’s system comes after several high-profile incidents in which people in other states were accosted by police because of data entry or clerical errors in ALPR systems. Joel Feder, an editor of the car journalism website The Drive, detailed a harrowing tale in which he was tracked for days and ultimately pulled over by police in Minnesota because the license plate of the car he was reviewing for the website had been entered into the Flock system as stolen by a police department in California. Monday, the website MotorBiscuit wrote about an innocent woman who was jailed for 13 days because she drove a black Dodge Durango and police searched the Flock system for a Black Dodge Durango suspected of being involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident.
Image: LAPD OIG
A new report by the LAPD Office of the Inspector General (OIG) suggests that instances of people being falsely pulled over because their license plates have shown up on an ALPR “hot list” are very common, and that the surveillance of people on hot lists that ultimately result in no action from police is staggering. Many ALPR systems have this “hot list” feature, which is where police enter a license plate and get a ping or notification about the vehicle’s whereabouts whenever it passes a connected ALPR camera. In a two-month period between August 1 and September 30, 2025, the LAPD’s cameras generated more than 210.5 million license plate reads, according to the report.

“During the review period, officers acknowledged 161 alerts as accurate license plate matches; however, subsequent investigations determined the vehicles were not stolen,” the report reads. “In addition to creating an inconvenience for vehicle owners, these inaccuracies can affect individual liberty interests, erode public trust, and potentially create substantial legal and financial liability concerns.”

The report notes that this happened because of “inaccurate or outdated information, increasing the risk of unnecessary enforcement actions, including vehicle stops and wrongful detentions, or a confrontation with serious consequences,” and that in many cases, license plates remained on a hot list after a stolen vehicle had already been recovered or was reported as not stolen, meaning the cops are in some cases pulling over the lawful owner of the vehicle.

Notably, the report states that when police get an ALPR hot list hit, the department generally considers any subsequent action to be a “high-risk” stop, meaning the risk of confrontation or potential danger is greatly increased from routine traffic stops for running a red light or speeding.

“When a license plate matches with a vehicle of interest on a Hot List, an alert will appear on the police vehicle’s Mobile Digital Computer,” the report reads. “Often, officers will approach the vehicle with extreme caution or conduct a ‘high-risk’ stop. This involves calling for back up, air support, and a supervisor and ordering the suspect out of their vehicle.” The report says, “department policy requires officers to attempt to verify the accuracy of the ALPR alert prior to conducting a stop,” but that often does not happen. The report also states that, on the vast majority of hot list hits, no action is taken by police meaning that specific people are being subjected to tracking and surveillance for no readily discernible reason. In the two-month audit period, 5,911 different license plates were tracked. No action was taken against 4,575 of those cars.

The LAPD said in response to the report that cars improperly flagged as stolen “generally result from the timing of record updates outside of the Department’s control, such as delays by another jurisdiction or a vehicle owner in clearing a plate from a Hot List after a vehicle has been recovered or is no longer wanted.” In other words, LAPD is often relying on other police departments to remove license plates from a hot list, highlighting the problems with networking different surveillance systems together.

The LAPD OIG report, which appears to have directly led the LAPD to allow its Flock contract to expire, studied the use of three different ALPR systems the department has been using, including static, pole-mounted cameras from Motorola and Flock and cameras in police cruisers made by Axon. In total, the department has nearly 2,000 ALPR cameras; LAPD accesses data for both Flock and Axon systems through Flock’s backend thanks to a data sharing partnership between Axon and Flock, according to the report. The report said the department was able to recover 337 stolen cars during the two months and that ALPR data led to 74 arrests total.

Both the OIG and the LAPD determined that the ALPR system needs to be reconsidered. The OIG suggested that the LAPD “suspend the deployment of new ALPR cameras and the execution of new ALPR-related contracts pending public input and a broader reassessment of vendors and data practices” and “strengthen oversight of ALPR data access.” The LAPD allowed its Flock contract to expire over the weekend, and said it would not enter into new contracts until going through a full audit process.

Innocent 23-Year-Old Jailed for Fatal Crash Because She Drove a Dodge Durango

Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) and Flock cameras are supposed to help law enforcement catch the bad guys. But what happens when the technology

^{Rahaan Mazumder (MotorBiscuit)}

404 Media

2026-06-12 16:10:05

‘You Will Not Speak on Flock Tonight’: County Commissioner Refuses to Let Residents Opposing Flock Speak at Meeting

A County Commissioner in North Carolina refused to let dozens of residents speak opposing Flock surveillance at a public meeting this week, instead forcing the group to designate one single spokesperson.

“How many people are here for public comment dealing with license plate readers AKA Flock?,” Michael Garrison, the chairman of the Madison County Board of Commissioners began the public meeting by saying. Nearly everyone in the audience’s hand went up. “Probably most everybody. Per our county policy, I’m going to respectfully ask that you guys take a few minutes to converse with each other, designate one person to speak … we’ll move forward with only one person, whoever that happens to be.”

“What? No. We all want to speak on this,” someone in the crowd said; others can be heard trying to object as well.

“You will not speak on Flock tonight,” he responds. “One person designated. You can pick that person … if I gave everyone three minutes to say the same thing, which is opposition to Flock, we’d never get done … I’ve spoken. I’m not debating this. I am taking advantage of our policy as it is written to streamline this process, you can either do it or not.”

“You’re in a room full of people who care!,” a person in the crowd says.

“We’re not going to engage in this back-and-forth conversation,” he responds. “We’re going to allow one person. Pick a person or not.”

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The Madison County Sheriff’s Office has been using Flock’s automated license plate readers, which scan and analyze the time and location of cars as they drive by, since at least March, according to a Facebook post by the Sheriff’s Office. Records compiled by HaveIBeenFlocked.com based on public records requests show that the Sheriff’s Office searches Flock hundreds of times per month. Over the last year, citizen privacy groups have successfully pressured their local governments into ending contracts with Flock. But in some cities and municipalities, residents feel like their concerns have been ignored.

“The Sheriff Office claims they are only using this technology for serious crimes, yet published audit logs tell a different story,” a website called Madison for Privacy says. “Madison County has searched the nationwide database over 1,200 times over just a 60 day period. In a county over only 20,000 residents, its hard to understand what could warrant this many searches.”
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Members of the audience and several of the commissioners then argued back and forth. The commissioners said that the citizens constituted a “group” who all had the same position, and therefore could only select one representative to speak for seven minutes, which the board said was longer than the three minutes each person would normally be allowed to speak for. Residents argued that they were not a “group” but were there to give different perspectives on the issue and that they were concerned about the surveillance as specific individuals: “I’m not here as a group, I’m an individual,” one person says.

“I’m not here to argue with you,” a commissioner responds.

“So you’re going to decide to not listen to your citizens, that’s what you’re saying,” a woman in the crowd says.

“We’re going to follow the policy,” the commissioner responds.

“Can we request that there be a special meeting,” about Flock, a resident says.

“If you want a special meeting, you go back to the 250 years that the sheriff has been the elected official in the state of North Carolina and you have that meeting with him. This board, we don’t own Flock cameras, I’ve emailed some of you this. We don’t pay for Flock cameras. We don’t operate Flock cameras. We have no interest in Flock camera or Flock camera discussion. That’s your elected sheriff. So if you want to have a meeting with the person that’s involved with that, then you’ll have a meeting with [him], not with us that’s a legislative body. We don’t control the sheriff’s budget. We give him X number of dollars, he does with it what he wishes. I’m not having this discussion. Either you select a person or not.”

One of the residents suggests that the board of commissioners could pass an ordinance about Flock cameras; he is cut off by Garrison, who says again that the residents can pick a person to speak or not. Eventually, the residents do select one representative, who was allowed to speak for seven minutes.

Garrison’s argument is that the Board of Commissioners gives the Sheriff’s Office a budget, and that the Sheriff can spend the money on whatever it wants to. He suggested that the board therefore does not have oversight of what surveillance technology police are buying or what they are using it for. This fact highlights a problem many communities around the country are facing: Cities and counties are sometimes buying Flock surveillance technology without any transparency, with no public process, and with very little oversight. Citizens around the country have also felt like their elected officials are not listening to their concerns about surveillance.

It is common practice at city council and county council meetings to allow all residents who have shown up to speak provide public comment, which is one of the reasons that these types of meetings are often many hours long. At the Madison County meeting, these residents were not allowed to speak, which is much different than the practices we’ve seen at other, similar meetings.

Later in the meeting, another resident explains that their public records requests for details about the Sheriff’s Office contracts and use of Flock have not been sufficiently responded to. She was allowed to speak because she was providing comment about her requests for public records, and not Flock specifically. “I’m here to talk about the lack of government transparency and accountability that I’ve seen come up with the Flock issue, starting with tonight. I think that it’s disgraceful the way you are refusing to let citizens speak to their elected officials,” she said. “We’ve repeatedly asked you to hold a public meeting for us to discuss this, so I’m very disappointed to see a lack of transparency.”

The Madison County Board of Commissioners and Madison County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment.

Stop Flock AI Surveillance Cameras

The Madison County Sheriff’s Department has begun rolling out Flock AI-powered Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras across the county. This decision was made without any public discussion.

^{madison for privacy (madisonforprivacy)}

404 Media

2026-06-11 15:21:26

Flock Leaked Cops’ License Plate Searches via DuckDuckGo, Bing

Automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company Flock exposed the reasons cops conducted searches, and sometimes the specific searched license plates, in common search engines like DuckDuckGo and Bing, according to tests by privacy advocates and 404 Media and a statement from the company.

The news marks an unusual data breach, and shows that sometimes surveillance technology can leak data in unexpected ways. 404 Media previously reported that Flock exposed the live feeds of some of its cameras.

In May the NoCo Privacy Coalition, an activist organization focused on Northern Colorado, shared with 404 Media multiple search engine results that appeared to expose some data related to Flock searches.

💡
Do you know anything else about Flock? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at joseph.404 or send me an email at joseph@404media.co.

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Flock Leaked Cops’ License Plate Searches via DuckDuckGo, Bing

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-04-06 13:53:56

Wildlife Conservation Police Are Searching Thousands of Flock Cameras for ICE

Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) police are performing dozens of license plate lookups on Flock cameras for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), according to public records that show details of the searches.

The practice highlights how ICE, which does not have a contract with Flock, continues to get access to Flock’s AI-powered license plate scanning cameras through local and state police, and often in ways that are unusual, unexpected, and difficult for the public to track or hold the agency accountable for. In this case, ICE has gained access to Flock data through a law enforcement agency that is nominally supposed to be focused on conservation, protecting endangered species, and investigating boating and maritime issues. 404 Media initially reported on how ICE was getting side-door access to Flock data via local police in May 2025.

That reporting led to a series of reforms and safeguards that are supposed to make it easier for law enforcement agencies that use Flock to opt out of having their surveillance camera data passed to federal agencies; a blog post by Flock called “Does Flock Share Data With ICE?” now states plainly “No. Flock does not work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or any other sub-agency of the Department of Homeland Security.” But in practice, the public records show that as of the end of January (the most recent data available) thousands of agencies around the country were sharing their camera data with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission police, which was then regularly performing lookups for ICE.

Flock cameras continually scan the license plate, brand, and color of every vehicle that drives by. Law enforcement can then search the Flock system to see where else a vehicle has travelled. Crucially, Flock maintains a national lookup tool where agencies in one state can search data generated by cameras in another, even if those cameras are on the other side of the country. Law enforcement typically do this without a warrant.

💡
Do you know anything else about Flock? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at jason.404. Otherwise, send me an email at jason@404media.co.

A January Flock network audit for Ball State University, a public university in Indiana that has a contract with Flock, shows that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission police performed 38 different Flock searches for reasons that were listed as “immigration.”

Flock network audits are spreadsheets that have a separate entry for each time a police department’s Flock data is queried by another agency. Each entry contains information about how many different networks and cameras were searched, the time of the search, and the stated “reason” for the search. The searches performed by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission had reasons that ranged from “Immigration (civil/administrative) - I.C.E.” to “Immigration (criminal) - General Criminal Investigation” to “Immigration (criminal) - I.C.E.” The network audit indicated that more than 5,000 different Flock networks were searched in each case, indicating that, as of January, thousands of towns and cities were still sharing data with agencies that ultimately work with ICE despite new safeguards put in place by Flock.

“This highlights when you do mass surveillance, you really can’t control the data,” Jay Stanley, a senior analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project, told 404 Media. “I doubt there were many cities that were debating the Florida Fish and Wildlife Services doing searches for ICE when they were talking about whether they should get Flock. It shows these searches can come from really any direction.”

The records in question were obtained from Ball State University by the journalist David Covucci, who covers college sports for his website FOIABall. Covucci shared the documents with 404 Media. The documents showed that, beyond the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission police, the Texas Department of Public Safety, Grant County Indiana Sheriff's Office, Lake County Indiana police, Sarasota County Florida police, Brevard County Florida Sheriff's Office, Nebraska State Patrol, Tennessee Highway Patrol, Fort Pierce Florida Police Department, and Mississippi Department of Public Safety had all done immigration-related Flock searches in January. This means that all of these agencies ultimately searched Flock cameras on Ball State’s campus (and thousands of others across the country) for immigration-related purposes.

Police with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission are able to do these lookups for ICE because in August, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis enrolled nearly 800 of its officers in 287(g), a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program that gives state and local police certain immigration enforcement powers. DeSantis has essentially turned many state police into an extension of ICE: “Florida is setting the example for states in combating illegal immigration and working with the Trump Administration to restore the rule of law,” DeSantis said in a press release announcing the move. “By allowing our state agents and law enforcement officers to be trained and approved by ICE, Florida will now have more enforcement personnel deputized to assist federal partners. That means deportations can be carried out more efficiently, making our communities safer as illegal aliens are removed.”

The ACLU published a report in February about how the expansion of the 287(g) program has vastly increased the Trump administration’s deportation force. “While in recent months the nation’s attention has rightly focused on the violence and abuse perpetrated by ICE and Border Patrol agents in places like Minneapolis, in Florida and around the country, communities are experiencing another kind of terror: Their own law enforcement agencies, working hand in glove with the Trump administration, are the perpetrators of blatant racial profiling, harassment, and even violence,” the report says.

The report specifically notes that “Florida appears to have devoted more state and local law enforcement resources to immigration enforcement than any other state, resulting in numerous cases of harassment and profiling of U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike, a climate of extreme fear in communities, and reports of serious civil rights violations.”

The ACLU’s Stanley said that the expansion of 287(g) has made a lot of the debates that communities are having about federal access to Flock data feel outdated, because they may fail to grapple with the fact that local police around the country are now doing work on behalf of federal authorities. “A lot of the focus in communities and elsewhere where Flock is controversial have focused on this question of ‘Will the feds be able to access this data?,’” Stanley said. “This is a reminder that the sharp expansion of 287(g) has made that almost moot because a lot of local authorities are working so closely with ICE.”

Flock has in recent months attempted to distance itself from ICE, in part with the “Does Flock Share Data With ICE?” blog post and with numerous media appearances and LinkedIn posts by its executives. Flock has repeatedly leaned on the idea that its customers own and control their data, and that Flock has made numerous changes to comply with several states’ laws that forbid the use of license plate reader data for immigration or abortion enforcement, or which ban the transfer of license plate camera data out of the state altogether.

“As we've shared with your organization many times, all our customers own their data and choose how to use it, provided it complies with local laws and statutes,” a spokesperson for Flock told 404 Media. “In cities and states where cooperating with federal immigration is against the law, we block that from happening within the product itself. In states where cooperation is legal, customers and their local values determine how they choose to enforce the law.”

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for Gov. DeSantis’s office, however, told 404 Media that the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission continues to work with ICE. “Please note that it is NOT out of the ordinary for FWC to work alongside ICE as they have a 287 (g) agreement with them-as do all State of Florida law enforcement agencies,” they said.

404 Media, other reporters, and transparency advocates have been reporting on the use of Flock cameras primarily by obtaining network audits through public records requests. But the utility of those network audits is rapidly deteriorating; as we reported earlier this year, Flock has made changes to its network audits that makes each individual entry more vague, and authorities have warned police to be “as vague as permissible” about the reasons why they are using Flock. Many Flock search reasons simply say “investigation” or another blanket term, making it impossible to know why the system was really used. Because of this change, it may become harder to track which agencies are working with ICE, and how often it’s happening.

“I think everybody using Flock knows you can get away with putting something like a generic descriptor that won’t tip off communities to what’s going on,” Stanley said. “This window of visibility is closing, even this very limited flawed, manipulable window of visibility is closing.”

Police Told to Be ‘as Vague as Permissible’ About Why They Use Flock

The documents show law enforcement sees themselves as being consistently and universally under threat from the people it is supposed to protect.

^{Jason Koebler (404 Media)}

404 Media

2026-03-26 15:04:32

Police Used Flock to Give a Man a Traffic Ticket

Georgia State Patrol used its system of Flock automated license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance cameras to issue a ticket to a motorcyclist who was allegedly looking at his cell phone while riding, according to a copy of the citation obtained by 404 Media. The incident is notable because Flock cameras are not designed for traffic enforcement or minor code violations, and many jurisdictions explicitly tell constituents that the cameras will not be used for traffic enforcement.

The incident happened December 26 in Coffee County, Georgia. The ticket lists the offense as “Holding/supporting wireless telecommunications device,” and includes the note “CAPTURED ON FLOCK CAMERA 31 MM 1 HOLDING PHONE IN LEFT HAND.”

A spokesperson for the Georgia State Patrol told 404 Media that the ticket was issued because of a “unique circumstance” in which a Flock camera happened to capture a traffic infraction, and that Flock cameras are not usually used by the department for traffic enforcement.

“This incident was a rare and unique circumstance where the captured image from the camera exposed an additional violation beyond the vehicle’s expired registration,” the spokesperson said. “This situation does not reflect a standard enforcement endeavor by the Department of Public Safety.” The traffic citation obtained by 404 Media does not mention that the man’s registration was expired.

Still, the incident is notable because Flock cameras are often pitched to police as tools for solving serious crimes, finding stolen vehicles, and locating missing people. They distinctly are not traffic cameras and are not pitched as such; the use of a Flock camera in this way shows that the images they capture can sometimes be detailed enough to be used as the pretext for a traffic violation, anyway.

Many police departments go out of their way to tell community members that Flock cameras are not used for traffic enforcement. For example, the City of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, states in a FAQ that “GSPD [Glenwood Springs Police Department] does not use Flock cameras for traffic enforcement, parking enforcement, or minor code violations.” El Paso, Texas, tells residents “these are not traffic enforcement cameras. They do not issue tickets, do not monitor speed, and do not generate revenue. They are investigative tools used after crimes occur.” Lynwood, Washington tells residents “these cameras will not be used for traffic infractions, immigration enforcement, or monitoring First Amendment-protected expressive activity” (Flock cameras have now been used for all of these purposes, as we have reported.)

The fact that police in Georgia did use Flock cameras for traffic enforcement highlights yet again that, essentially, law enforcement agencies are able to use these cameras for whatever they want. There are very few limitations on what Flock cameras can be used for, and police do not get warrants to search Flock’s network of cameras, either locally or nationwide. Network audits, which are spreadsheets of Flock searches we have obtained via public records requests, have shown that police use Flock for all sorts of reasons; they often do not list any reason at all for searching a license plate.

The man who was cited in Georgia posted about the incident in an anti-Flock Facebook group asking for advice. He said that he showed up in court and the ticket was dropped. The man did not respond to multiple requests for comment from 404 Media and because he is a private citizen cited for a minor traffic violation, we are not naming him. 404 Media independently obtained the citation.

California Cops Investigate ‘Immigration Protest’ With AI-Camera System

New data obtained by 404 Media also shows California cops are illegally sharing Flock automatic license plate reader (ALPR) data with other agencies out of state, who in turn are performing searches for ICE.

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}

404 Media

2025-11-21 00:00:09

Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country

Police departments and officials from Border Patrol used Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras to monitor protests hundreds of times around the country during the last year, including No Kings protests in June and October, according to data obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF).

The data provides the clearest picture yet of how cops widely use Flock to monitor protesters. In June, 404 Media reported cops in California used Flock to track what it described as an “immigration protest.” The new data shows more than 50 federal, state, and local law enforcement ran hundreds of searches in connection with protest activity, according to the EFF.

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Cops Used Flock to Monitor No Kings Protests Around the Country

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}