01 · Overview
What is Flock Safety?
Founded in Atlanta in 2017, Flock builds the largest private ALPR network in America — 120,000+ cameras in 49 states (sorry, Alaska), 6,000+ communities, 20 billion scans a month. If you've driven anywhere, you've been photographed. Hi, by the way.
- ALPRs fingerprint every passing car — make, model, dents, bumper stickers, roof racks. Plate optional.
- Raven listens for gunshots; it piloted listening for screaming until July 2026.
- Condor PTZ pans, tilts, and zooms in on faces walking by.
- Nova enriches it all with public records, commercial databases — and, until reporters asked, data-breach records.
- FreeForm search takes plain English: "person in red hoodie." Records show searches by race, gender, tattoos, perceived politics. OS Investigate, revealed by WIRED in August 2026, needs even less — a place, a time window, a behavior pattern. No name. No crime.
Everything feeds one nationwide, cross-agency searchable database. ICE Homeland Security Investigations, the Secret Service, and NCIS have all had access. Retention now "defaults" to seven days per Flock's August 2026 announcement — a default each agency can override in its own contract. That's not surveillance — that's thoroughness.
02 · Features
Why we love Flock
A few features we appreciate. Each thoughtfully designed so nothing goes unnoticed — least of all you.
Vehicle Fingerprinting
Dents, stickers, roof racks — your car is recognizable even without a plate. A comprehensive vehicle history, whether you asked for one or not.
Solar-Powered, Always On
No wires, no permits, no input from the people being recorded. Sunlight in, your commute out.
Raven Audio
Gunshot detection that expanded to human screaming in 2025. The pilot ended in July 2026 — but imagine what it heard along the way.
Condor PTZ
Zooms in on faces as people walk by. In December 2025, at least sixty feeds were openly streamable ("Netflix for stalkers") — fixed quickly, we're told.
Nova Person Lookup
Turns plate hits into people — addresses, relatives, phone numbers. It even drew on data-breach records until journalists noticed — resourcefulness!
Search Without Suspicion
FreeForm searches by description; OS Investigate searches by movement pattern — neither requires a warrant. Both require only curiosity.
03 · Field guide
How to recognize a Flock camera
Once you know the look, you'll see them everywhere. That's by design.
Twin eyes, green band
A dark housing with Flock's green band and two side-by-side eyes, solar panel on top, mounted eight to twelve feet up. It photographs every car — plate, make, dents, stickers.
Anywhere the sun reaches
Solar panel plus cellular modem means no wiring and no permission from anyone being recorded. Entrances, school zones, trails, your street.
One yes is enough
On private property, the owner's consent is the whole process — no council vote, no hearing, no notice to you. Your neighbor's "yes" hangs a camera over your commute.
They publish the map for you
DeFlock volunteers have documented 130,000+ locations, and Have I Been Flocked? searches audit logs for your own plate. Full surveillance comes with a lookup feature — for you. Example photos.
A new kind of bird watching
Birds migrate — these don't. Flock watching is the community hobby where the specimens hold perfectly still: same plumage, same pole, every season. Log your finds on DeFlock's crowdsourced map, trade coordinates with friends and family, and turn the school run into citizen science. No binoculars required. Please do not feed them.
04 · Beyond the camera
Your devices are talking
Every Flock pole already carries cellular and wireless receivers. Whether yours also logs Bluetooth and Wi-Fi identifiers is something only Flock knows — there is no independent way to audit a camera.
In June 2026, defense contractor Leonardo made it official: SignalTrace retrofits ALPR cameras to capture Bluetooth and Wi-Fi signatures, "linking devices that regularly travel together" to license plates. Your phone, your watch, your passenger — correlated to your car. Leonardo also owns ELSAG, with decades of installations to upgrade.
Flock's cameras already have the hardware. The question isn't whether they can listen. It's whether they already are.
05 · Trust
How Flock protects your privacy
No facial recognition*
*ALPRs focus on vehicles. The Condor PTZ — which zooms in on faces — is a separate product line. Technically true is still true.
7-day retention*
*A recommendation only. Each agency sets its own retention under contract, and many run longer; existing customers kept their settings when August 2026's change arrived, and legal holds last indefinitely. A default you can override isn't a limit.
Audit logs
One Oregon officer entered "hehehe" as a search reason 20 times in a month — proof the system captures everything. Savannah's audit flagged 127 of ~39,000 searches; six employees fired, four arrested. The system works.
No third-party sales
Data isn't sold — it's shared, freely, with thousands of agencies. One Ohio county logged 900,000 outside searches in a single month, over 90,000 from Texas. Sharing isn't selling. It's hospitality.
06 · Competition
Flock isn't the only one
A healthy market keeps everyone innovating. Wherever you go, someone has you covered:
| Company | Specialty |
|---|---|
| Motorola / Vigilant | Legacy ALPR plus its own national sharing network |
| Axon / Fusus | Body cams and real-time crime centers — many exiting cities swap Flock for Axon |
| Rekor | Cloud ALPR bolted onto cameras you already paid for |
| Genetec AutoVu | Parking and video platforms that know who entered and who drove by |
| ELSAG / Leonardo | SignalTrace device tracking — see section 04 |
| PlateSmart | Proof the hardware was always optional — the collecting never was |
| Verkada | Face-recognition cameras; a 2021 breach exposed 150,000 live feeds |
| Fog Reveal | Warrantless phone location bought from ad brokers |
Plates here, faces there, phones everywhere. Not redundancy — comprehensive coverage. And the market leader wants a camera on every corner.
07 · By the numbers
Flock at a glance
Numbers this consistent don't happen by accident. They happen by design — and at scale.
08 · History
How we got here
Dining table to national infrastructure in nine years. Open any year for the details.
2017Three founders, one dining table
2019–21From HOAs to police departments
2022–23Scale, scrutiny, $3.5B
Oct 2024Drones overhead, warrants questioned
Mar 2025$7.5B, and Nova surfaces
Aug–Oct 2025Federal access goes public
Dec 2025–Feb 2026Backlash finds its rhythm
Apr–Jul 2026Cities head for the exits
Aug 2026The reckoning — and the pivot
09 · Perspective
What others are saying
"There's no reason the technology should be used to create comprehensive records of everybody's comings and goings."American Civil Liberties Union, 2023
"This is precisely the kind of dystopian panopticon we've warned about."Electronic Frontier Foundation, on Flock Nova, 2025
"DeFlock is a terroristic organization whose primary motivation is chaos."Garrett Langley, Flock Safety CEO, Forbes, 2025 — apologized 2026
"We're not Big Brother. We're focused on protecting people."Garrett Langley, Flock Safety CEO, Bloomberg, August 2026
"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, 2026
Strong opinions on all sides — which is how you know the coverage is thorough.
10 · Questions
Common questions
Is Flock in my city?
Flock operates in 6,000+ communities across 49 states — every state except Alaska. DeFlock has mapped 130,000+ ALPR cameras nationally. Live in a midsize or larger city? Assume yes. Check DeFlock.
Can I opt out?
You cannot opt out. Your car cannot opt out. We checked. The only exit is civic: the ACLU's "Get The Flock Out" guide covers organizing your council to cancel contracts.
How long is my data kept?
The seven-day default announced in August 2026 is a recommendation. Each agency sets retention in its own contract, many keep data longer, existing customers were grandfathered in, and legal holds preserve records indefinitely. Nothing guarantees expiration.
Who has access to the data?
Thousands of agencies share the network. Senator Wyden's 2025 letter confirmed ICE Homeland Security Investigations, the Secret Service, and NCIS all had access; an Illinois audit found CBP reading state data despite a ban on immigration use.
11 · Resources
Learn more & take action
Reference
Take action
Investigations & reporting
12 · Start exploring
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