Overview
What is Flock Safety?
Flock Safety is on a mission to eliminate crime. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the company has built the largest private camera network in the United States — serving law enforcement agencies, homeowner associations, and businesses across 50 states. If you've driven anywhere in America, Flock has almost certainly photographed your car.
Flock was founded by three Georgia Tech alumni — Garrett Langley (CEO), Paige Todd, and Matt Feury — who built their first camera prototype by hand after a personal experience with neighborhood crime. That dining-room-table prototype became an $8.3 billion public safety platform employing nearly 1,500 people with a $500 million annual revenue rate. Langley's stated goal: a Flock camera "on every corner."
Flock's core products include automated license plate readers (ALPRs) that capture every passing vehicle — not just the plate, but make, model, color, bumper stickers, dents, roof racks, and temporary tags. The Raven audio detection system listens for gunshots and, as of 2025, began piloting detection of human screaming. The Condor PTZ camera pans, tilts, and zooms, automatically focusing on faces as people walk by. The Nova platform enriches all this data with public records, commercial databases, and — until journalists reported on it — data breach records. The company acquired drone manufacturer Aerodome in 2024, adding aerial surveillance to its ground network. A partnership with Amazon's Ring, announced in October 2025, would have integrated doorbell footage into the Flock network before public backlash ended it four months later. Many cameras are installed at no cost to law enforcement, funded instead by community associations — a model that lets neighborhoods invest directly in their own safety.
The company also offers FreeForm search, which lets police describe a vehicle or person in plain English — "white sedan with roof rack," "person in red hoodie" — and search across camera footage. Public records requests have shown searches by race, gender, clothing, height, tattoos, and perceived political affiliation. If you can describe it, investigators can search for it.
While Flock says its cameras "focus on vehicles, not people," the Condor PTZ camera — a separate product line — is designed to zoom in on faces as people walk by. Together, license plates, vehicle fingerprints, audio recordings, and person profiles feed into a nationwide, cross-agency searchable database. A vehicle's movement history captured in one city can be accessed by law enforcement in another. Investigations have revealed that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Secret Service, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service all had access to Flock's camera network. Flock defaults to 30-day data retention; agencies can extend retention per customer agreement. The company processes over 20 billion vehicle scans per month. That's not surveillance — that's thoroughness.
Appreciation
Why we love Flock
Flock Safety offers a comprehensive suite of products that bring peace of mind to communities. Here are the features we appreciate most — each one thoughtfully designed to make sure nothing goes unnoticed.
Vehicle Fingerprinting
Flock doesn't just read license plates. Its cameras identify make, model, color, bumper stickers, dents, roof racks, and temporary tags — building a unique digital fingerprint for every vehicle, stored and searchable. Even without a plate, your car is recognizable. That's not tracking — that's a comprehensive vehicle history.
Solar-Powered, Always On
No utility hookup needed. Flock cameras run on solar panels and cellular networks, so they can be installed anywhere — street corners, hiking trails, playgrounds, a neighbor's utility pole. No permission required from the people being recorded. The camera never sleeps, and neither does your community's safety.
Raven Audio Detection
Gunshot detection is just the start. In October 2025, Flock announced Raven devices would begin listening for "human distress" — screaming, specifically. If someone is in distress, Raven hears it and alerts law enforcement automatically — no 911 call required. Flock ended this pilot program in July 2026, but the technology demonstrated what's possible when public safety infrastructure learns to listen.
Condor PTZ Cameras
Pan, tilt, zoom. These cameras automatically zoom in on faces as people walk by. Live feeds, 30-day video archives, remote control — everything an investigator needs. In December 2025, 404 Media and YouTuber Benn Jordan found at least 60 Condor cameras freely accessible from the open internet. Jordan called it "Netflix for stalkers." Flock called it "a limited misconfiguration on a very small number of devices" and quickly resolved the issue — a reassuringly fast response.
Nova Person Lookup
A "public safety data platform" that enriches ALPR data with public records, commercial databases, and — until journalists reported on it — data breach records. The result: a remarkably complete picture of any person, assembled from sources most investigators would never think to combine. The breach-data feature was removed after reporting, but the platform continues to draw from every other available source. When you need to know everything about someone, Nova delivers.
FreeForm Search
Police can search camera footage by typing plain English descriptions. "White sedan with roof rack." "Person in red hoodie." Public records requests revealed searches by race, gender, clothing, height, tattoos, and perceived political affiliation — exactly the kind of flexible, intuitive querying that makes modern policing effective. If you can describe it, investigators can search for it. No warrant required.
Spotting Flock
How to recognize a Flock camera
Flock cameras are designed to be visible — they're not hidden. Here's how to spot one in your neighborhood. Once you learn the signs, you'll be amazed at how many you've been driving past every day.
Look for the green band
Most Flock Falcon cameras have a distinctive green stripe around the housing — a friendly, approachable color that says "safety" rather than "surveillance."
Solar panel on top
A small solar panel sits above the camera unit — no wires, no utility bills. Just sunlight and cellular data, beaming your plate to the cloud.
Two lenses
Falcon cameras have two camera lenses side by side, giving them a distinctive "eyes" appearance. Two angles means twice the coverage — and twice the certainty that no detail is missed.
Mounted on poles
Typically installed 8–12 feet high on dedicated poles, utility poles, or street sign posts at neighborhood entrances and major intersections — the perfect height to capture every plate without obstruction.
A neighbor's utility pole
Cameras can be installed on private poles with the property owner's permission — no city council vote, no public hearing, no waiting. Your neighbor can bring comprehensive coverage to your street before you even know it's being discussed.
Check the map
DeFlock maintains a crowdsourced map of over 116,000 ALPR camera locations across the United States — a community-driven effort to document the growing network. If you spot one that isn't mapped, you can contribute to this public resource.
Once you know what to look for, you'll start seeing them everywhere. That's by design — visible cameras deter crime. And if you don't see one, that doesn't mean it isn't there. The DeFlock map has only documented about 116,000 so far, and new cameras are being installed every day. The network is always growing, which means your community's safety is always improving. See example photos at deflock.org/identify.
Beyond the camera
Your devices are talking. Someone's listening.
License plates are just the part you can see. Every Flock camera already contains cellular modems and wireless receivers — the same hardware needed to capture Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signals from the devices in your pocket, on your wrist, and in your car. Whether that capability is active today is something only Flock knows. What we do know: the technology exists, it's already deployed in the field, and there's no way to tell if a camera on a pole is just reading plates — or reading you.
Every modern device constantly broadcasts its presence. Each one has a unique hardware address — a MAC address — that never changes and can be logged, stored, and searched. None of this is encrypted. None of it requires your consent.
In June 2026, defense contractor Leonardo made it official. Their product SignalTrace retrofits existing ALPR cameras with dedicated Bluetooth and Wi-Fi sensors, capturing every device signature from every vehicle that passes. The system "links devices that regularly travel together, correlating them to license plate," building an electronic fingerprint of every car and everyone in it. Your phone and your AirPods always travel together? Now law enforcement knows they're both yours — and which car you drive. Leonardo also owns ELSAG, one of the oldest ALPR manufacturers, giving them a direct path to deploy this across thousands of existing installations.
But here's what matters: Leonardo didn't invent the idea of putting a Bluetooth receiver on a pole. They just productized it. Flock's cameras already have the wireless hardware. A software update is all it takes. Flock has never publicly stated whether its cameras capture Bluetooth or Wi-Fi identifiers. They've also never stated that they don't. And with 80,000+ cameras processing 20 billion vehicle scans a month, there is no independent way to audit what signals each camera is collecting.
What does this mean in practice? A police officer investigating a vehicle no longer needs to know who was driving. They query the plate, and the system returns every device that was in the car — phones, watches, earbuds, key fobs. Then they query those devices and get every other vehicle they've ever been in. Your morning commute, your weekend errands, your passenger's identity — all linked, all searchable, all without a warrant. This isn't speculation. This is technology that is already deployed and already in use by law enforcement agencies today.
Leonardo calls it "identifying people of interest by the signals emitted from their electronic devices." We call it thoroughness. After all, if a license plate tells you which car passed by, why wouldn't you also want to know exactly who was inside — and what they were carrying? The hardware is already on the pole. The question isn't whether it can listen. The question is whether it already is.
Trust
How Flock protects your privacy
Flock is serious about responsible use. Here are the safeguards the company highlights.
No facial recognition
Flock's ALPR cameras focus on vehicles, not faces. The Condor PTZ camera — which automatically zooms in on faces as people walk by — is a separate product line, so this commitment remains technically true.
30-day default retention
Flock keeps your data for 30 days — 720 hours of your driving history, available to any officer in any connected agency. After 30 days, it's deleted. Unless your local agency extended it. Or placed a legal hold. Or shared it with another agency that keeps it longer. What happens after that is up to thousands of individual police departments. Flock trusts them completely.
Audit logs
Every search is logged for accountability. An ACLU investigation found one Oregon department entered "hehehe" as a search reason 20 times in a single month — proof the audit system captures everything. Third-party tools like Have I Been Flocked? let the public request their own records.
No third-party sales
Flock does not sell ALPR data to private companies or marketing firms. Data is shared freely with thousands of law enforcement agencies across all 50 states through the Flock network — a public service, not a sale.
Visible, not hidden
Every camera is designed to be seen. This transparency lets communities know exactly where coverage is active — and serves as a deterrent. After all, people behave better when they know someone is watching.
Context
Flock isn't the only one
Flock Safety is the market leader, but a healthy competitive landscape keeps the industry innovating. Here are the other companies working hard to make sure that wherever you go — by car or by phone — someone has you covered.
Motorola Solutions (Vigilant)
Acquired by Motorola in 2019, Vigilant is Flock's most direct competitor, offering ALPR cameras and a national data-sharing network used by thousands of law enforcement agencies.
Axon (Fusus)
Best known for Tasers and body cameras, Axon has expanded into ALPR and real-time crime center software. Their integrated ecosystem means an officer's body camera, Taser, and license plate data all feed into one platform — a complete picture of every interaction, from every angle.
Rekor Systems
Takes a different approach: instead of selling hardware, Rekor provides cloud-based ALPR software that works with existing third-party cameras — turning infrastructure you already paid for into a surveillance asset.
Genetec AutoVu
A division of Genetec, a major video security company. AutoVu offers ALPR as part of a broader platform that includes access control and video management — so your building knows who entered, and your parking lot knows who drove by.
ELSAG (Leonardo)
One of the oldest ALPR manufacturers, now part of Italian defense contractor Leonardo. Widely deployed across the U.S. for over two decades — proof that once these systems are installed, they tend to stay. In June 2026, Leonardo launched SignalTrace, a sensor that retrofits ALPR cameras to also capture Bluetooth and Wi-Fi identifiers from phones, AirPods, smartwatches, key fobs, tire pressure sensors, and pet microchips — linking every device in a car to its license plate.
PlateSmart
Software-only ALPR solution that works with any camera. Used by law enforcement and commercial clients for vehicle recognition without proprietary hardware — proving that the hardware is optional, but the data collection isn't.
Verkada
Cloud-based security cameras with face recognition, person analytics, and ALPR capabilities. Markets directly to law enforcement and public sector agencies. Suffered a 2021 data breach exposing footage from 150,000 cameras — a reminder that even security companies benefit from transparency.
Fog Data Science (Fog Reveal)
A different kind of coverage: this tool lets police track cell phone locations without a warrant by buying location data from advertising brokers. Used by hundreds of departments to map "patterns of life" — because your car's location tells one story, but your phone tells a much richer one.
Together, these companies form an ecosystem of overlapping coverage. License plates from Flock and Motorola. Faces from Verkada and Genetec. Phone locations from Fog Reveal. Body camera footage from Axon. Each fills a gap the others leave behind. That's not redundancy — that's comprehensive public safety infrastructure. And with Flock's CEO aiming for a camera "on every corner," the coverage is only getting better.
By the numbers
Flock at a glance
The numbers speak for themselves. When you process 20 billion vehicle scans a month across 50 states, patterns emerge that no individual investigator could ever see.
Numbers this consistent don't happen by accident. They happen by design — and at scale.
History
How we got here
From a dining room table to 80,000 cameras across 50 states. A story of vision, execution, and the steady accumulation of data.
Perspective
What others are saying
We believe in hearing all perspectives — even the critical ones. A technology this important deserves robust public discussion. Here's what critics, journalists, and the company itself have to say.
"There's no reason the technology should be used to create comprehensive records of everybody's comings and goings — and that is precisely what ALPR databases like Flock's are doing. In our country, the government should not be tracking us unless it has individualized suspicion that we're engaged in wrongdoing."American Civil Liberties Union, 2023
"If the reports about Flock Nova are true, this is precisely the kind of dystopian panopticon we've warned about."Electronic Frontier Foundation, describing Flock Nova, 2025
"A growing number of incidents now show the same pattern: broad surveillance, shaky oversight, and enough operational risk to create real harm for ordinary people. ALPR systems create durable location records about people who are not suspected of any crime."Malwarebytes, "The backlash against Flock cameras is spreading," July 2026
"At least 24 cases nationwide of officers using automated license-plate reader cameras like Flock to stalk romantic interests over the past two years — including a Milwaukee officer who searched someone's plate over 200 times over two months."Mother Jones, "Police Keep Losing Their Jobs for Using Flock Cameras to Stalk People," July 2026
"DeFlock is a terroristic organization whose primary motivation is chaos — closer to Antifa than anything else. The ACLU and EFF use the courts."Garrett Langley, Flock Safety CEO, Forbes interview, 2025
"All I'm saying is if you give bad information, then I just don't want to work with you."Matt Mugerauer, Mayor of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, after revoking Flock contract, July 2026
Strong opinions on all sides. That's what happens when technology matters this much.
Questions
Common questions
A few things people often ask about Flock and what it means for their community.
Is Flock in my city?
Flock cameras are deployed in over 5,000 communities across 50 states. The DeFlock map has documented over 116,000 ALPR cameras in the United States. If you live in a midsize or larger American city, there's a good chance a Flock camera has recorded your vehicle. Check DeFlock to see mapped cameras near you.
Can I opt out?
There is no individual opt-out from ALPR surveillance. Flock's cameras capture every passing vehicle by design. The only way to avoid being recorded is to avoid driving past a camera. Some communities have successfully pushed their city councils to reject or cancel Flock contracts — the ACLU's "Get The Flock Out" guide covers how to organize locally.
How long is my data kept?
Flock defaults to 30 days of retention. However, individual agencies can extend retention by customer agreement or legal hold, and data shared with other agencies is subject to those agencies' own policies. There is no single, guaranteed expiration date for your driving history once it enters the Flock network.
Who has access to the data?
Flock data is shared across thousands of law enforcement agencies through the Flock network. A 2025 letter from Senator Wyden confirmed that ICE Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Secret Service, and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service all had access. An Illinois audit found CBP had accessed state data despite a law barring immigration use.
Resources
Learn more & take action
Deepen your appreciation. Whether you want to understand the technology, get involved in the conversation, or find out what's already in your neighborhood, these resources have everything you need.
Official sources
Take action
Investigations & analysis
News coverage
Start exploring
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