A growing bipartisan backlash against security technology company Flock Safety is emerging across the United States. Critics argue that the Georgia-based company’s extensive network of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) gathers sensitive information in ways that may conflict with Fourth Amendment protections. Flock maintains that its technology is legal and helps law enforcement improve public safety. However, a series of errors and alleged abuses has raised serious questions about how the system is being used.
Although Flock has recently attracted widespread attention, the controversy reflects a much broader problem: the widening gap between Americans’ expectations of constitutional privacy rights and the realities of living in an increasingly surveilled, technology-driven society.
Flock cameras are already operating across thousands of communities
Surveillance cameras in public spaces have existed for decades. What has changed is the emergence of artificial intelligence, which gives companies such as Flock the ability to collect, analyze and search enormous amounts of information on a scale that has alarmed privacy and civil liberties advocates.
Flock says roughly 120,000 ALPR cameras are currently operating in about 7,000 communities throughout the United States. The cameras photograph passing vehicles and record license plates along with identifying characteristics such as vehicle color, bumper stickers and visible damage. This information can then be used to identify and track vehicles. Newer Flock systems have also reportedly demonstrated the ability to focus on and follow pedestrians.
The company’s cameras effectively record the movements of millions of people, yet Flock argues that this activity does not violate the Fourth Amendment. The constitutional provision generally restricts the government from conducting unreasonable searches and has been interpreted by the courts to provide protection for certain forms of digital location information, including cellphone location records, when obtained without appropriate legal authorization.
Flock itself is a private company and therefore is not bound by constitutional restrictions in precisely the same way as government agencies. However, its primary business involves providing surveillance technology to law enforcement agencies. That relationship has intensified concerns among civil rights advocates, particularly when inaccurate information generated by the technology contributes to police encounters.
ALPR mistakes can lead to dangerous police encounters
The expanding use of automated license plate readers has coincided with reports of innocent motorists being stopped, detained and, in some cases, confronted by armed police because of incorrect information generated by surveillance systems.
One recent incident involved a Wisconsin woman who was pulled over on a busy interstate after Flock technology incorrectly associated her vehicle with a homicide investigation. Police surrounded her with weapons drawn. She reportedly told local media that the incident was the second time in less than two weeks that she had been stopped at gunpoint because of an apparent identification error.
The experience left her deeply shaken. She described being unable to sleep and said that whenever she closed her eyes, she remembered seeing guns pointed at her.
A similar episode occurred several weeks earlier involving automotive journalist Joel Feder and his wife. While test-driving a Range Rover in Minnesota, they were reportedly surrounded by armed officers after the vehicle was incorrectly identified by Flock’s system as being connected to stolen license plates. Feder later wrote that the technology controversy had become a deeply personal experience for him.
A July analysis by the Institute of Justice examined 24 traffic stops associated with errors involving license plate reader technology. According to the organization, police officers drew their firearms during roughly two-thirds of those encounters. Michael Soyfer, an attorney with the Institute of Justice, warned that such situations can quickly become life-threatening when officers act on incorrect information.
Traffic stops are inherently risky, regardless of whether surveillance technology is involved. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, more than 800 people died during traffic stops between 2017 and 2025. The organization also points to racial disparities, noting that Black Americans account for more than one-quarter of those deaths despite representing about 12 percent of the U.S. population.
Another alarming case occurred in Ohio earlier this year. A Black motorist was stopped after an erroneous Flock alert reportedly linked his vehicle to a wanted vehicle. He exited his car while officers had their weapons drawn and was subsequently attacked by a police dog. The encounter left him with serious, life-altering injuries. He was also detained in jail for several hours before authorities released him.
Flock has promoted an accuracy rate of approximately 93 percent for its technology. However, even a small error rate can translate into a substantial number of mistakes when a system processes an enormous volume of data. The company's network reportedly scans more than 20 billion license plates each month. At that scale, a 7 percent error rate could potentially amount to more than a billion inaccurate readings every month.
Statistics calculated across the entire Flock network may also conceal significant problems in individual communities. In Roseville, California, for example, a customized Flock deployment generated 1,427 alerts involving vehicles believed to be stolen or associated with felony investigations between 2023 and 2024. More than 70 percent of those alerts were subsequently determined to be incorrect. Flock reportedly attributed the unusually high error rate to older equipment being used in a configuration requested by local officials.
AI surveillance is moving into a legal gray area
Flock is not the only company operating in this increasingly controversial space. Technology companies such as Flock Safety and Skydio are developing increasingly sophisticated surveillance tools while lawmakers and courts struggle to establish rules that adequately address their capabilities.
The legal situation is particularly complicated because existing privacy law was largely developed before modern AI systems could continuously collect and analyze information about people's movements.
The Supreme Court has generally recognized that people have a reduced expectation of privacy when they are in public. However, legal scholars and privacy advocates argue that AI-powered surveillance networks may go well beyond traditional security cameras. Instead of simply recording isolated events, interconnected systems can potentially create searchable records showing where a person has traveled and how they have moved through a community over an extended period—even before there is evidence that the individual has committed a crime.
The concern extends beyond license plate readers. Penn State University researcher Anne Toomey McKenna has argued that modern society is increasingly surrounded by commercial and consumer technologies capable of gathering personal information. These include home security cameras, smartphones, connected vehicles and automotive sensors.
That creates a difficult distinction between private companies and government agencies. A company may use collected information for commercial purposes, but government agencies have the authority to arrest, detain and prosecute people. When law enforcement gains access to enormous quantities of commercially collected data, questions about constitutional safeguards become considerably more complicated.
For ordinary citizens, avoiding these systems entirely is becoming nearly impossible. People can take steps to limit the amount of information they generate, but opting out of modern technology altogether is rarely practical.
The debate surrounding Flock therefore represents more than a dispute over license plate readers. It is part of a larger struggle over how much surveillance a modern society should permit, who should control the resulting information and what safeguards should exist when technology makes mistakes.
As AI-powered surveillance continues to expand, stronger public scrutiny, clearer legislation and meaningful judicial oversight may be necessary to prevent surveillance data from being misused and to ensure that technological advances do not come at the expense of fundamental civil liberties.