Maps, petitions, and city hall: How people are battling Flock

Flock cameras don’t look like much: a box on a pole, pointed at the road. But they photograph passing cars and turn where and when they were seen into searchable records. Police say that helps solve crimes. Critics worry about who can really search those records, what they can do with them, and how much of a person’s daily life they might reveal.

So what happens when people find one in their community and want it gone? Quite a bit, it turns out. Residents across the U.S. are mapping cameras, digging up contracts, and filling public meetings. Others have gone after the cameras themselves, stealing or vandalizing them. And this week, 404 Media and WIRED reported that hackers removed one and copied its stored data, giving journalists a rare look inside a device that features software capable of detecting people as well as cars.

Here’s a compilation of what people have done through maps, records requests, petitions, and city hall — and what those efforts have actually changed.

1. Putting Flock cameras on the map

One way people are pushing back is by making the cameras easier to see. Volunteers with Deflock Maps, a crowdsourced automated license plate reader (ALPR) resource, document license plate readers and add their locations to OpenStreetMap. The site opens on a map dotted with numbered clusters of reported cameras. Search for a city or ZIP code, zoom in, and those clusters give way to individual locations. It includes readers made by Flock and other companies, though its volunteer-submitted data may be incomplete or out of date.

In San Francisco, 16-year-old Zachary Schwartz noticed there wasn’t a local DeFlock chapter, so he started one. DeFlock SF pairs a city camera map with local news, a calendar of meetings about the technology, and a link for residents to contribute camera locations. Schwartz and fellow student Hugo Zorn have also made videos and spoken at Police Commission meetings. Schwartz has also called for an audit of how the city uses the cameras and what data they collect.

DeFlock isn’t the only place people are documenting the technology. The Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Atlas of Surveillance lets users search by city or police agency to see whether it has documented license plate readers. It answers a different question from DeFlock’s street-level map: which agencies have been identified as using the technology, rather than where each reported camera sits.

Curious what’s been documented near you? Enter your city or ZIP code in DeFlock Maps and zoom in on the numbered clusters to see individual camera locations. If you spot a reader that’s missing or marked incorrectly, DeFlock explains how to add or correct it through its app and OpenStreetMap. Just remember that a pin is a volunteer report, and an empty stretch of map isn’t proof there are no cameras.

2. Following the paper trail

Some people are fighting Flock by checking whether what happens behind the scenes matches what their city agreed to. In Syracuse, New York, Central Current found a gap between the two. The city’s contract said its license plate data wouldn’t be shared outside the police department. But the department had granted access to other agencies, which police said was an accident. Over roughly a year, searches by officers around the country reached Syracuse’s data nearly 4.4 million times. And that wasn’t the only surprise in the paperwork. Central Current also found that Flock could keep using Syracuse data after the contract ended.

When the city approved cameras from Axon to replace Flock’s, Flock said Syracuse couldn’t simply end its agreement early. It warned that the city might have to pay for both systems; so even as officials moved to replace the cameras, they faced questions about what Flock could do with the data and what the city might still owe.

People elsewhere have been looking at the searches themselves. The Electronic Frontier Foundation examined Flock search logs released through public records requests and found that some users entered “LMAO” or “idk” as their reason for searching. And website Have I Been Flocked? puts released logs in one searchable place, though it has only the records it’s been able to obtain.

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Curious what’s on record where you live? The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) suggests looking for Flock on city council agendas; you can also check Have I Been Flocked? for your local agency or request its search logs.

3. Showing up and organizing locally

For residents trying to push back against Flock cameras, the first step is often finding out who agreed to install them. From there, neighbors can compare what they’ve learned, organize around the next public meeting, and ask officials to make a decision in front of the people affected.

That’s what happened in Saranac Lake, New York. Cameras began appearing before many residents knew the village had agreed to install them, so they attended board meetings to ask who had approved the deal and why the public hadn’t been consulted. By a March meeting, dozens had filled the room and the hallway. Trustees came prepared to pause the cameras while they wrote a policy. Residents argued for ending the program instead, and the board voted 4–1 to cancel the contract.

Elsewhere, people have kept the pressure on between meetings. In Milford, Connecticut, residents connected through a DeFlock Milford Facebook group, brought signs, and returned to speak as the debate continued. Activists even projected “Flock Out Of CT” onto City Hall before a vote. In Austin, more than 30 community groups joined forces and residents raised concerns at a council work session ahead of a decision on renewing the program.

If you want to find out what’s happening where you live, the ACLU’s toolkit can help you connect with a nearby group and identify which officials are the decision makers.

4. Writing lawmakers and gathering signatures

Not everyone can make it to a meeting. Some people are putting their objections in writing — and gathering thousands of signatures so officials can see how many others agree.

At the national level, the ACLU’s “Get the Flock Out” campaign offers a draft message people can edit and send to members of Congress. It asks lawmakers to ban license plate readers. If they won’t, the message calls for limits on federal funding and use, warrants to access the data, and faster deletion.

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Local petitions can name the people who have the power to remove specific cameras. In Texas, a petition opposing Flock cameras in Boerne and Kendall County asks county commissioners to cancel the agreement, take down the cameras, and delete the data they’ve collected.

Of course, a growing signature count doesn’t guarantee a changed vote. In Conroe, Texas, resident James Fletes started a petition calling for the city to cancel its Flock contract. It had more than 1,200 signatures by July, but the council went on to shelve proposals to review the cameras or put their use to a public vote. (The city kept their Flock program.)

For people writing their own officials, the ACLU’s organizing toolkit has a sample email for state and local representatives, proposed rules for how camera data can be used and shared, and a resolution a city could use to cancel a Flock contract. Want to send something? You can personalize the message to Congress, or use the toolkit to make a specific request of the officials who control cameras where you live.

5. And yes, some people have gone after the cameras themselves

Some people have taken the fight to the cameras. In Houston, Flock readers have been found damaged, painted, and knocked down. In another neighborhood, four Flock cameras were cut down in late July, prompting a law enforcement investigation. And in Winona, Minnesota, all eight of the city’s police-operated Flock cameras were stolen. The people responsible haven’t necessarily explained their motives, but the incidents show how far the backlash has moved beyond public meetings.

There are even people who went looking inside a Flock camera. Hackers removed one, copied the data stored on it, and shared the files with 404 Media and WIRED this week. The journalists found software that could detect people as well as vehicles. Logs from the device showed it had generated about 1.6 million images of roughly 50,000 vehicles across 21 days of recoverable activity. Flock said removing and tampering with the camera was illegal.

The findings raise many questions: What can these devices detect? What data do they keep, and who can access it? If you’re wondering about cameras near you, start with the agency operating them and the officials who approved the contract.

What the hackers found gives people more to ask about at the next public meeting. And those questions won’t disappear if a city swaps Flock for another company’s cameras, as Syracuse plans to do with Axon. We’ll see where the fight goes, and how much more the public, and the company, can take.