Flock cameras ignite a bipartisan backlash
In late August, a 23-year-old driver weaving on a west Denver road late at night ticked off an 18-year-old and his passengers in another car. The younger man flashed his lights and his friends made obscene gestures, enraging the older fellow enough that he gave chase and repeatedly fired a gun, according to police.
He hit one of the passengers, who died four days later.
The shooter sped off with a Denver police car in hot pursuit. But, in the end, investigators used surveillance video, including from Denver’s Axon and Aurora’s Flock cameras, to track the car and capture the killer.
Score another win for the more than 100,000 such cameras that have popped up all across the U.S. The Denver case comes atop more than one million criminal investigations and incidents last year that were aided by Flock cameras, according to Flock Group Inc. The Atlanta-based company claims that its ubiquitous cameras were involved in one of every five resolved cases and that they helped authorities find more than 10,000 missing persons.
So, what’s not to love about the cameras, which don’t collect images of people but rather of vehicle information, principally car license plates? Well, according to a strange-bedfellows mix of right-wingers and lefties, there’s plenty to hate about the so-called ALPRs (automatic license plate readers) from Flock and its increasingly popular rival, Axon Enterprise Inc.
On the left, the “creepy cameras” drew the ire of the ACLU. “Just think about how much someone could learn about your life if cameras constantly tracked where you drove,” the group says. “They could find out which doctors you visit, what house of faith you worship at, who you visit or drive around with — even which political meetings and protests you attend.”
The ACLU points to repeated use of Flock by ICE and CBP to go after immigrants without warrants. “Kansas police used them to pursue a man who wrote a critical op-ed about the department, while a Colorado police officer wrongfully accused a woman of theft based on a Flock hit and then refused to look at evidence proving her innocence,” the group adds. “A mother and her children were held at gunpoint because ALPR cameras wrongly flagged their car as stolen.”
Meanwhile, on the right, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, recently told police departments to stop spending state money on Flock Safety cameras. As The Texas Tribune reported, Abbott pointed to a Lufkin, Texas, police officer now facing 100 counts of misusing public information for allegedly using the area’s Flock cameras to surveil eleven people for more than a year. At least six police departments and sheriff’s offices across Texas in the past month have announced that officers were being placed on leave, investigated or criminally charged in misuse cases.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis quickly followed Abbott’s move with orders to have the systems pulled off roads in his state. DeSantis, who also opposes using automated systems to clock speeders, describes the surveillance technology as “out of control.”
As Newsweek reported, more than 150 U.S. communities have now rejected, canceled or deactivated automated license plate reader systems, according to the anti-surveillance project DeFlock, marking a sharp increase in just a few weeks. They range from Lynchburg, Virginia, and Asheville, North Carolina, to Gloucester, Rhode Island. Summit County in Colorado, where I live, suspended its deal with Flock for 30 days to seek public comment.
At least nine of the 30 cameras in my county have been taken down or vandalized in recent weeks.
Across the country, the cameras have even become a midterm campaign issue. The Associated Press reported that candidates for governor in Wisconsin have sought limits, while others in Pennsylvania have supported a ban. A Michigan congressional candidate called the cameras “un-American,” and an enterprising Florida Senate candidate began offering campaign merchandise opposing them.
Donald J. Trump seems to be trying to suss out the politics involved, perhaps calculating how many votes his party could lose by taking a stance. “Well, it’s being studied right now,” Trump said, according to the Washington Examiner and PBS News. “You know, you have pros and cons, right? It’s being studied right now. We’ll have an answer soon, as to our views on it, in the coming weeks.”
For its part, Denver canceled its contract with Flock, but replaced it with cameras from Axon, known to police for its Tasers and body cameras. Denver halved the number of cameras to 50 under Axon, which backers say offers better privacy protections. Unlike Flock, which keeps its data in a national database accessible to law enforcers across the country, Scottsdale-based Axon limits its information to individual subscribing agencies. Denver, for instance, owns and controls its data. And that data disappears after 21 days.
Still, in the recent Denver murder, cameras from both companies played a role, it appears. Notwithstanding the abuses – which surely merit prosecution – there’s little question that the heightened surveillance with such cameras has been enormously helpful in nailing bad actors.
It all reminds me of a visit I made a while ago to Singapore, where cameras track not only vehicles, but people. On a bicycle tour of the city-state, our guide asked us why we had not seen any police officers or cars. His answer: there are few of them because everyone knows they are on camera in any public place. The result is an extraordinarily low crime rate, with just 341 physical crimes for every 100,000 residents reported last year.
Americans and Singaporeans, the guide noted, have different ideas about the tradeoff between safety and privacy. The “watchful protectors,” as Singapore police call them, don’t sit well with lots of Americans.
For me, the issue is something of a no-brainer, though, a case of flailing after a barn door when the thoroughbreds are miles down the road already.
As a matter of principle, I see little difference between my license plate being eyed by a roving police car or a cop on the corner and a fixed camera. Moreover, there are few public places anymore, it seems, where cameras don’t track our movements. Go to any shopping mall, walk into many shops, and trip down most city streets and it’s a good bet you are on candid camera.
Is this a good thing? Not sure about that. Is it creepy, as the ACLU says? No question. Still, that seems to be life in America and much of the rest of the world in 2026. Privacy seems to have become as quaint as the parchment the Bill of Rights was written on.
There’s no doubt for me, however, that abuses of the system by ICE or cops pursuing lovers who jilt them demand prosecution. Such things are far creepier than having my plate clocked while driving down Main Street in Frisco or anywhere else. Perhaps suitable regulation with good oversight would come in handy.
But depriving cops of a tool that can nab murderers or find missing folks? I suspect few of us would be down with that.