Full transcript
Flock cameras are dividing entire
communities like no street closing car
meet ever could because on the one hand,
defenders will state that these
automated license plate readers help
protect the community by aiding police
investigations into missing persons,
stolen cars, and wanted fugitives.
On the other hand, critics have called
this a privacy nightmare because local
law enforcement agencies aren't the only
ones with access to data on your
movements, nor are criminals the only
ones subject to having their privacy
invaded. But what makes this all
significantly worse for opponents of
automated license plate readers is the
reality that these cameras and their AI
systems can't even guarantee that the
people being singled out as criminals
are actually criminals that these
cameras were meant to identify. It's
utterly ridiculous and understandably
communities across the country are
finally fighting back against ALPRs
like Flock in a desperate battle to win
back some measure of automotive and
personal privacy as drivers across the
country discover first hand just how
wrong these cameras can get it.
Ramblin report at the end of the month
and I make what I want when I feel like
discussing cars.
It's not often that automotive
journalists go viral and when they do,
you would hope it would be for a
positive reason, but that's not really
what happened to The Drive's Joel Feder
who was the star of body cam footage of
a Flock assisted police bust gone wrong.
On July 8th, Feder detailed the now
viral incident in an article for The
Drive, stating that he and his wife were
exiting a department store in suburban
Minnesota when they were suddenly
surrounded by police cars on suspicion
that the $155,000
Range Rover press car he was driving had
been stolen, or rather that the plates
had been stolen. Police had been
tracking the Range Rover through Flock
cameras, waiting for an opportunity to
pop out and surround him like a pack of
mosquitoes on a summer leg.
But to the surprise of the police
officers and basically no one else, the
Flock cameras were wrong. The Range
Rover was misidentified as a stolen
vehicle due to a simple input error
committed thousands of miles away in Los
Angeles that the Flock cameras AI
couldn't compensate for because, well,
it wasn't really designed to.
As the Electronic Frontier Foundation
notes, automated license plate readers,
or ALPRs,
use, quote, a combination of high-speed
cameras and optical character
recognition technology that can identify
license plates and turn them into
machine-readable text. The cameras can
also be mounted on police cars or other
vehicles such as tow trucks to passively
collect license plate scans during
routine patrols or to surveil specific
communities by driving systematically
through targeted neighborhoods. After
the plate data is collected, the ALPR
systems upload the information to a
central database along with the time,
date, and GPS coordinates.
Cops can search these databases to see
where drivers have traveled or to
identify vehicles that visited certain
locations.
Police can also add license plates under
suspicion to hot lists, allowing for
real-time alerts when a vehicle is
spotted by an ALPR network.
End quote.
Now, as Feder states in his article,
this press car bore New Jersey
manufacturer plates, which have a set of
numbers in the middle that are smaller
than the characters on either side. So,
the plate here is listed as 34 10 DTM,
with the 10 being the smaller number in
the middle.
Flock gets its information from the
National Crime Information Center
database, and presumably the license
plate must have been logged incorrectly
in the NCIC database because it was
recorded in the log as just 34 DTM
without the 10. So, the Flock camera
apparently just flagged any Range Rover
with that partial plate. Yet, even if
the officer had recorded the accurate
plate number, an ALPR like Flock can
only log plates that are legible to its
systems. And a unique plate like this
might not have been for reasons we'll
get to a bit later.
Of course, while the mistake was cleared
up and Feder was eventually free to go,
the entire ordeal would go on to become
one of those dumb situations that'll
make you roll your eyes so hard they
could flatten Indiana Jones. Because not
only was the plate on Feder's Range
Rover not stolen, the Range Rover plate
that was believed to have been stolen
wasn't stolen, either.
That Range Rover had been for a photo
shoot, after which its plate was
misplaced, and so the dealer had to
report it to the police as having been
lost. And it would seem that the system
didn't really differentiate between a
plate being lost or being stolen. Either
way, this all resulted in a completely
innocent man and his wife being
surrounded by armed police officers like
they just stolen the Declaration of
Independence.
Now, Fetter wrote a follow-up article in
which Flock's Chief Communications
Officer Joshua Thomas noted that even if
the 10 had been a normal size on the
plate, the system still would have
flagged it because, for better or worse,
the system is trained to operate on
partial plates, since that's sometimes
all that law enforcement has to work
with. So, if 34 DTM was all that the
system had, it was still going to look
for any license plate that had 34 DTM,
whether the middle number was 10 or, as
was the case with the actual missing
plate, the middle number was three. And
to Thomas's credit, he wasn't really
trying to come at it from a standpoint
of simply defending Flock cameras, at
least from his perspective, but rather
trying to understand how this could have
happened in the first place. And it
would appear that law enforcement in
this case acted outside of Flock's
recommended protocols, which is to,
believe it or not, verify that the plate
they're looking for is actually a match
with the plate that was pinged.
Revolutionary concept here.
For his part, Thomas would note that
Flock is taking measures to mitigate the
effect of human input errors, but that's
got to be easier said than done, right?
And a good effort to get this done
probably isn't good enough when the
stakes are this high.
A report by Business Insider back in
March cited a case from April 2024 in
which an Ohio man named Brandon Upchurch
was detained on suspicion of stealing a
truck that was legally registered to
him.
Upchurch was hesitant to get out of his
vehicle since he hadn't done anything
wrong, but he did comply eventually and
started to get on his knees. The officer
saw this and presumed that Upchurch was
planning to run but had just tripped, so
he released his police dog who went on
to pounce on Upchurch and ram his head
into the ground and then bite down on
his arm. And to add insult to injury,
Upchurch was sent to the county jail
after his wounds were treated and
charged with resisting arrest and
obstructing official business.
And what do you know? Turns out the
police had been alerted to this
supposedly stolen truck by Flock.
Business Insider states that Flock
monitors and collects misread rates, but
that they declined to provide the
publication with the specifics about
that data, with a spokesperson noting
that, quote, "We have strong confidence
in our models and continuously improve
them through ongoing optimization and
testing."
End quote.
But the spokesperson goes on to add that
they don't offer the accuracy figure
because the performance of the Flock
cameras depends on the design of the
license plate and other factors like the
lighting conditions and the environment.
And this is where we come back to the
issue of license plates needing to be
legible.
To the best of my knowledge, there is no
federally mandated or standardized
typeface for license plates in the
United States. It's up to the individual
state. Otherwise, I'm not sure
collecting license plates would be as
popular or fashionably decorative as it
is, if it even still is. But this opens
up the issue that some states have
license plates that are more legible
than others to an AI system that only
seems to kind of know what it's doing.
Even ignoring the typeface, some license
plates have wacky designs that can
intermingle with or otherwise obscure
the plate number's legibility.
I mean, look at a Florida plate. A
phallic mess of circumcision silhouettes
and oranges the size of a man's
biological seed garage. The design
underlaps the typeface in such a way
that it's not inconceivable that it
could mess with an AI system's ability
to make out the plate number.
Ohio has a fairly clean plate design
without any juiceable fruit taking up
surface real estate. But even then,
Flock still got it wrong in Brandon
Upchurch's case as the system misread a
seven as a two, mistakenly matching his
plate with one flagged as stolen and
sending an innocent man to the hospital
and then to county jail.
Now, automated license plate recognition
isn't exactly new.
In fact, ALPR technology dates all the
way back to 1976
when the UK's police scientific
development branch began utilizing plate
tracking as an anti-terrorism measure.
In the decades that followed, they
spread around the globe, although ALPR
technology was mostly limited to major
metropolitan areas with the funding to
afford the pricey infrastructure demands
and utility costs that were necessary to
install these things and to keep them
operational.
But then, if they're so expensive,
how did they become so prevalent?
Even in areas that you wouldn't think
would have the budget to afford these
cameras.
Well, Flock is far from the only ALPR
company on the market.
But when they were founded in Atlanta,
Georgia in 2017, they operated through a
unique business model.
You see, Flock cameras are solar-powered
and cellular, thereby reducing
electrical and network infrastructure
costs. But they also ran on a
subscription model that packaged
hardware, software, and maintenance into
a single annual price.
So you had the cost benefits for one,
but you also had significant potential
reach because Flock cameras allowed law
enforcement to tap into a broader
network of private users and businesses.
Now, of course, these other users needed
to first opt into sharing with law
enforcement. But that mom-and-pop bakery
that keeps getting robbed, that's
exactly what they're going to do since
these cameras are presented as being way
more technologically sophisticated than
simple CCTV cameras. And from all
appearances, they are.
For instance, while ALPRs don't have
facial recognition capabilities, they
can track individuals since a lack of
facial recognition doesn't really
preclude the camera from being able to
make out personal details. And from an
automotive standpoint, they can not only
track the color, make, and model of your
car, but even modifications and flaws,
roof racks, temp tags, bumper stickers,
it's all capable of being logged as
machine-readable information that
theoretically provides police with more
to go on than just a grainy image of a
possible suspect.
And with Flock extending their hardware
into the drone space and even into
mobile security trailers, I can
understand why a business would
subscribe.
Flock projects an identity of
comprehensive protective surveillance
that fills in the gaps of police
capability.
But if the goal for Flock is to protect
public safety,
the message kind of gets undermined when
entire communities are being opted into
a surveillance network that extends far
outside the bounds of that community
and without their direct consent.
Flock makes it clear on their website
that they do not sell your data to third
parties and will not provide law
enforcement access to your camera if you
don't allow it.
And if you're a private customer with a
Flock camera, that's all well and good.
But the decision on whether or not to
grant access to third parties rests with
whomever controls the Flock
subscription, not with whomever is being
surveilled or having their information
collected.
For example, Flock denies that US Border
Patrol has access to their database, but
an October 2025 audit by the University
of Washington's Center for Human Rights
found, quote, limited cases of law
enforcement agencies in Washington state
conducting side door searches on behalf
of federal immigration enforcement
agencies.
End quote.
Reportedly, Flock pilot programs with
federal agencies have been put on hold
for the time being. So, I guess
technically, Flock isn't contracting
with the federal government, although
that's really just semantics. But in the
grand scheme of things, the federal
government doesn't even need to have a
contract with Flock to have access to
their database if local law enforcement
agencies agree to conduct database
searches on the government's behalf.
And I know the argument is that
well, if you aren't doing anything
wrong, you have nothing to worry about,
right? But that presumes that these
cameras are far more effective at
catching actual criminals than the data
would suggest.
A study by the Electronic Frontier
Foundation found that, quote, on
average, only 0.5%
that is, 1/2 of 1% of license plate
scans were attached to a hot list. This
means that 99.5%
of the license plates captured by ALPR
are actually not connected to a public
safety interest at the time they are
captured.
End quote.
And of course, most people aren't
criminals. So naturally, most people
recorded by these cameras aren't going
to be criminals.
But while the half of 1% number doesn't
prove that ALPRs
never solve crimes, it does show that
roughly 199
out of every 200 scans involved vehicles
that had no connection to any crime or
public safety issue at the time that
they were recorded, which suggests to me
that by serving as a sort of
technological dragnet collating the
information of majority innocent
motorists, the system is working exactly
the way it was intended to work.
But okay, let's say for argument's sake
that ALPRs like Flock are a significant
investigative tool for law enforcement.
Well, that's great, but the problem is
that not everyone with access to the
data Flock collects is using it in good
faith.
In 2022, a police lieutenant in Kansas
was arrested for using Flock to spy on
his estranged wife. Two years later,
also in Kansas, a police chief used
Flock's database to track his
ex-girlfriend 228
times.
Just last week, a detective in Central
Florida was arrested for allegedly using
Flock and other law enforcement
databases to spy on her husband's
ex-wife.
Another Kansas man was targeted by his
local police department for writing an
op-ed piece criticizing them. And what
the hell are you guys even doing over
there in Kansas? Working on your pulled
pork recipe in between violating each
other's civil liberties? What even is
this? But perhaps most alarmingly of
all, last November, a Colorado woman's
Rivian was wrongfully connected to a
theft by Flock cameras. And the result
was that she then had to go and collect
her own evidence to prove her innocence
before police would drop the case. So
now, this supposed tool to keep people
safer is something that can be used for
harassment, retaliation, and stalking,
and arguably at worst for falsely
accusing you of a crime and then moving
the goalposts on burden of proof.
So naturally, people aren't really all
that happy about any of this, and some
communities are downright fed up. And
this is where I want to talk about some
of the good news from the month of July
2026 for people who are vehemently
anti-ALPR.
Tennessee Representative Tim Burchett
has introduced a bill to block federal
agencies from purchasing or accessing
automated surveillance systems. And he
even spoke to Knox County Mayor, the Big
Red Machine Kane, about getting them the
Flock out. As I sit here wondering how
the Undertaker's fake brother gets to
rule over an entire [music] county, much
less one that houses the Sun's sphere.
But in some of the low-key best news of
the month, Flock finally decided to end
its pilot program for a distress
detection feature on their audio
detection device, which currently flags
sounds like fireworks and gunshots and
car crashes, but with distress detection
would now also factor in sounds like
screams, which feels like a really
hit-or-miss concept in general. And I'm
not even sure that gunshot detection is
the best idea because anyone who's been
in America on July 4th or even just the
summer in general should know why this
kind of seems like a bad idea as similar
systems like the ShotSpotter gunshot
detection system have come under fire,
no pun intended. I I did not intend that
pun and you cannot prove that I did,
have come under fire for their
inaccuracy or at the very least for the
ease with which they can be
misinterpreted. Case in point, a
teenager nearly got shot back in 2024
when police officers responded to an
alert from the ShotSpotter system and
opened fire because they mistook the
fireworks the teenager set off for
gunshots.
So, while the distress detection feature
is going away, which appears to be for
the best because I don't think every
single instance of noise in the street
deserves an armed police presence,
gunshot detection systems, at least for
the time being, don't seem to be going
anywhere.
Yet the safety risks do seem secondary
to the privacy concerns when it comes to
jurisdictions rethinking their
relationship with Flock.
The Los Angeles Police Department, one
of the largest metropolitan police
forces in the country, is scaling back
their use of Flock cameras due to
privacy concerns over who actually
controls the data being collected.
Meanwhile, commissioners in Monroe
County, Indiana voted to terminate their
contract with Flock and even paid a
$3,000 removal charge to get the cameras
removed sooner than the September 2027
agreement termination date.
But breakups aren't always so clean,
such as in Verona, Wisconsin, where the
city council voted to remove Flock
cameras, but were informed by Flock that
they were not to remove the cameras
themselves. So, in an act of malicious
compliance, they opted to cover the
cameras with black trash bags since they
didn't know if the cameras were still
technically operational.
Other cities have taken the black trash
bag approach as well, although some
areas have been home to actual vigilante
justice with masked Flock fighters
taking to the streets to destroy these
ALPRs outright. And while I don't
condone doing that, it does illustrate
the rise of deflocking measures among
communities who want nothing more than
to get the Flock out.
Currently, there are resources such as
deflock.org,
an open-source tool for locating and
mapping ALPRs across the country, so you
can see if your community is using these
cameras.
Meanwhile, the website
haveibeenflocked.com
allows you to look up your license plate
to see if it's among the plates that
have been logged in the 233
million Flock searches that they know
about.
Now, this website makes a point of
saying that your plate not showing up in
their database doesn't mean you haven't
been flocked. And that's because their
data comes from audit logs they've
acquired through public record requests,
and most agencies don't publish audit
logs of their own accord. So, it kind of
falls to watchdog websites like these to
make the requests and make them
accessible.
So, use at your own discretion, but I've
provided the link to both of those
websites in the description.
Yet, what I found through all of my
research into this is that while Flock
states that there are safeguards in
place that preclude bad faith actors
from having to the information these
cameras collect, I don't believe there
are any kinds of safeguards in place
capable of guaranteeing that because
it's a system that serves at the
pleasure of whomever controls it.
So, if it's in control of a local law
enforcement agency that doesn't mind
doing side door searches on behalf of
the federal government, or they're in
the hands of a vindictive law
enforcement official who can use that to
stalk and harass or otherwise target
you, well, then okay, Flock isn't
directly responsible for the actions of
the people who use the system, but then
they're also not directly responsible
for oversight either.
So, the only real solution then is to
get rid of the cameras all together.
And look, in isolation, you could argue
that the goal of Flock cameras is a
noble one since presumably it's about
preventing crime, preventing property
damage, and locating missing vehicles,
missing people, and capturing fugitives.
But, if you think about it, it's
open-sourcing the prison industrial
complex because now we're all under the
watchful eye of a warden with really
lousy eyesight. And worse, it's a warden
who's stubbornly refusing to get glasses
because I think the problem people have
with these cameras is the same problem
people have with AI, which is that it's
easier to introduce into a society than
it would be to remove it. Once people
get used to using these types of
security cameras and begin to rely on
them in the same way a college student
relies on Chat GPT to write their
research paper, the harder it will be to
go back.
I mean, look at that woman in Colorado
and tell me that isn't terrifying that a
person had to prove her innocence rather
than having it be presumed until any
guilt was proven. It's easy to say that
could never happen to us, but I'm sure
the victims of wrongful accusation or
stalking thought so, too, that it could
never be them.
And it can never be you, right?
Until it's suddenly you.
But ultimately, there's hope, I believe,
that the process of integrating ALPRs
into society is not irreversible, as
shown by these communities that have
successfully kicked Flock out. Contracts
have expiration dates and you can even
end them early, albeit at cost. But I
guess that's the price of allowing your
community to regain some semblance of
personal anonymity and freedom.
And I think as people become more
knowledgeable about these cameras
beforehand, before they're introduced
into their towns, it can be easier for
these communities to fight back so that
they never get installed. Or that they
can get them banished for good if they
do get installed. But then you have the
problem that who's to say that even if
you get rid of Flock cameras, that the
method of surveillance wouldn't then
change to something else.
Maybe this is the new normal.
But what's hopeful here is that people
aren't just resigned to allowing this.
They're fighting back by exercising the
freedom that deserves to remain theirs.
Because freedom is a right that is
inherent. The minute you start feeling
as though it's something that needs to
be reclaimed,
it's not really freedom anymore.
But what do you think? Do flock cameras
have more of a potential benefit for
society than perhaps we're giving them
credit for having? Or do automated
license plate readers need to become a
thing of the past? Have you ever been
falsely accused of a crime due to an
automated license plate reader? What are
your experiences with flock cameras, if
you've had any at all? I want to hear
all of your stories and read all of your
thoughts. So chat me up in the comments.
I'll be in there. Keep a lookout for my
screen name. It's Limited Time Roman.
And if you enjoyed the video, please
like, comment, subscribe, or even share
the video with someone you think might
enjoy it. But if you'd like to support
the channel in the biggest possible way,
join us on Patreon for just a dollar to
get videos early and ad-free along with
other exclusive content. But regardless,
your viewership is enough. And I thank
you for the gift of your time, and have
a great, outstanding, flock-free
rest of your week.