If you’ve been driving places in your day-to-day life, you have likely encountered a Flock camera on the side of the road, at a stoplight or intersection, or even around your neighborhood or local grocery store. What is it about these cameras that has created such a divisive conversation about surveillance capitalism and citizen privacy?

What is Flock?

Flock Group Inc. (operating as Flock Safety or Flock) was co-founded in 2017 by three Georgia Institute of Technology alumni: Garrett Langley (Flock CEO), Paige Todd, and Matt Feury. Flock manufactures surveillance hardware and software alike. While Flock is not the only surveillance provider, it is currently one of the most prolific and notorious; in only nine years since its founding, the company has installed around 120,000 Flock cameras across the country and holds an $8.4 billion valuation. 

Flock boasts of products like automated license plate recognition (ALPR) and pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) security camera systems, drones as first responders (DFR), gunfire locators, and integrative software, among other tools. The surveillance manufacturer prides itself on “build[ing] technology that helps communities deter crime, respond to emergencies, and investigate safety incidents,” with an ample base of “cities, law enforcement, businesses, schools, and neighborhoods” among its target customers.

According to a Flock-directed survey, “across communities where Flock is used, approximately 1 in 5 cases resolved by law enforcement involved Flock technology.” By their own admission, “officers routinely rely on Flock as part of active investigations, and [their] technology plays a role even when it is not the sole deciding factor in clearing a case.” Needless to say, the growing prevalence of these cameras in high-traffic areas is by design: by providing these systems to law enforcement, ALPR manufacturers make a case for their products’ trustworthiness and an appeal to preventative safety, presenting its tech as a way to solve crimes. But if this is the only application of these technologies, why the vocal pushback? Well, it’s more complicated than just setting up omniscient surveillance cameras in every corner in hopes of “catching the bad guy.”

Birds of a Feather…

In July, CEO Garrett Langley presented a TED Talk case for the technology, opening with an intense story about a Tennessee woman whose 11-year-old grandchild was rescued from a sex trafficking attempt because “there [was] a Flock camera just down the street.” We will discuss many of his talking points throughout, but regarding Flock’s partnership with law enforcement and public safety agencies, Langley claims that in the context of investigative police work, Flock technologies are seen as “transformational as DNA [evidence]” because the data collected by ALPRs has brought more objectivity to cases. Langley argues that “[the United States has] the law enforcement infrastructure we need to be safe, yet we haven’t made… the most important decision as a society, which is that safety should not be a privilege, safety should just be a right.” 

When it comes to interstate crimes (given that a fair portion of these cameras are heavily concentrated around highways and border crossings), Langley interprets the previous police framework as a “data problem” and lack of collaboration, stating that Flock bridges the gap by “[creating a] national network of data that allows local law enforcement to work together.” It’s no surprise, then, that police departments are the company’s primary clients, with over 5,000 law enforcement agencies (out of around 18,000 nationwide) adopting this technology. Surely, nothing can go wrong when an AI-based interconnected surveillance network partners with a system that disproportionately incriminates and punishes members of marginalized communities, right?   

On Thin Flock-ing ICE

The growing number of surveillance technologies being implemented nationwide brings up one of the main concerns that makes ALPR companies like Flock so controversial: who is being surveilled, and to what extent? The answer is, well, everyone, all the time.  

Not only are ALPR surveillance technologies used to keep track of American citizens, but companies like Flock have been scrutinized for their collaboration with anti-immigration enforcement. While Flock claims it is not partnered with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and that “federal agencies are not a part of a statewide or national lookup,” this statement is willfully misconstrued at best. Thanks to an anonymous whistleblower, 404 Media reported in 2025 that “local police around the country are performing lookups in Flock’s AI-powered [ALPR] system for ‘immigration’ related searches and as part of other ICE investigations, giving federal law enforcement side-door access to a tool that it currently does not have a formal contract for.” This information is corroborated by organizations like the Immigration Policy Tracking Project, which also found through 404 Media that “reportedly more than 4,000 lookups have been conducted at the behest of the federal government for immigration purposes,” with state/law enforcement not only able to “search their own Flock cameras, but also those in other states or even nationwide.” So, while Flock may not be partnered with certain government agencies such as ICE, these agencies can still have indirect access to this data through the collaboration of law enforcement, who are able to freely supply this information without any oversight or regard for citizen privacy. 

When it comes to data privacy and retention, Flock says that its customers “own and control their Flock data” as they see fit, with the data collected through its products “belong[ing] to the customer operating those systems” and the disclaimer that “Flock does not claim ownership of customer data, use it for advertising, or sell it to third parties.” Additionally, Langley defends that, unlike competitors who store collected data in perpetuity, Flock stores it for 30 days. But this does not mean the information is automatically deleted; this is only the case if the client decides to store it for that recommended amount, meaning that they have control of the longevity of said information in their system—though as recently as October 2026, Flock has since “reduced [their] recommended default data retention from 30 days to 7 days,” according to their site. Still, despite these reassurances, ALPRs are creating a concern for confidentiality. And that’s barely even mentioning the domestic cases of authorities abusing the power of this technology to stalk and track down vulnerable groups. Whether it be to locate and incriminate a Texas woman who sought an abortion or to find an estranged partner running from an abusive police ex, Langley dismissed cases like these by saying that “this is a tradeoff [he could] make” for safety (curiously, his home address and identifying information were quickly leaked and subsequently scrubbed—it seems that Langley does value his own privacy enough to anonymize himself). 

All of this to say, while the applications of ALPRs and adjacent tech may have sprung from a well-intentioned interest in combating crime, the nature of their data collection is a concern for the right to private autonomy in the United States. As TED AI Show podcast and guest curator Bilawal Sidhu put it at the end of Langley’s TED Talk, “Most people want to live in a world that is free from crime. At the same time, nobody wants to live in a perpetual panopticon where every move that you do is surveilled.” 

Get the Flock Out: On Public Opinion

It may feel dystopic to know that this surveillance technology seems to be proliferating to a new degree. But not all hope is lost—the general public is beginning to question the motives behind these implementations and demanding transparency, accountability, and regulation. 

The town of Avon, Colorado, provides a relevant case study. In mid-July, the town council scheduled a meeting after someone stole a Flock camera and destroyed several camera poles, incurring an estimated $52,500 in damages. However, to the Avon town officials’ surprise, a Facebook post reporting the incident was met with thousands of supportive comments. After testimonies, email comments, and general public pressure within multiple community work sessions culminating on October 6th, the Avon Town Council decided to terminate its contract with Flock Safety, vowing to physically remove twelve ALPR cameras in the town as soon as possible. Those who opposed the partnership with Flock and other camera systems cited fears of data mishandling, lack of transparency, and fear for vulnerable and targeted community members such as immigrants and women—all comments that were received with hostility by some of the council members who support these ALPR and safety systems. Ultimately, the 4-3 vote to terminate the city’s camera contract with Flock shows how public opinion grows increasingly negative.   

It’s worth noting that the Avon case was not the only instance of Flock device vandalism. Nationwide backlash against Flock has inspired the destruction, theft, and obstruction of its products in at least 36 states, according to an August All Things Considered segment from NPR’s Meg Anderson. Even more telling are the communities that are taking action across the country to limit, cancel contracts, or even ban the infamous systems from their cities entirely. The Coalition Against Stalkware is one of many organizations seeking to combat ALPR surveillance networks. DeFlock, an open-source anti-surveillance resource that maps ALPRs across the United States, has documented over 150 cities that have rejected the technologies—their “Recent Victories” list specifies the date and outcome of these protests and interventions. Amid the backlash, the startup is rumored to be planning to cut down about 18% of its workforce, impacting roughly 270 employees.

Moreover, legal action is being taken against Flock and similar ALPR companies. Recently, Colorado resident Chrisanna Elser has filed a federal lawsuit against Flock and federal officers, citing “negligence, invasion of privacy, unlawful search and other violations” that led to her being mistakenly accused of criminal activity. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) greatly opposes ALPR systems, filing an ongoing amicus brief (a written argument that calls a court’s attention to “some aspect of substantive or procedural law”) in April 2026 challenging the Norfolk, Virginia police department’s use of Flock technologies, elaborating on how the extensive and unregulated collection of sensitive data across jurisdictional lines “violate[s] expectations of privacy under the Fourth Amendment.” To this criticism, Langley defends Flock by describingoffering the example howthat a phone—a device that has become necessary in our everyday lives—is technically a surveillance item that people willingly opt into, so why should safety cameras used in public spaces be perceived any differently?

Langley addresses privacy concerns in his TED Talk, explaining that Flock has emerged victorious in 34 court cases where it was “unanimous[ly]” determined that the company was not in violation of the Constitution. The CEO asserts that “every action inside of Flock is audited and stored in perpetuity,” reassuring that the company is taking accountability measures. He also argues for the need for ALPRs through cities with larger crime rates; for him, “the challenge is that when you decrease surveillance and in effect decrease safety, it impacts certain parts of the community more than others.” But what interested me about this last comment was how Langley equates surveillance to safety, essentially justifying the prying overreach and data collection of these ALPR systems as a necessary tradeoff for the pretense of comfort and security. The question is, is this a compromise Americans should be forced to make?