Flock Safety (Flock Group Inc., a privately held Delaware corporation headquartered in Atlanta) sells automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera networks, video cameras, audio detection, and drones to law enforcement agencies, homeowners associations, and businesses; its own License Plate Reader Policy states the cameras capture license plate images, vehicle images, and vehicle characteristics from areas visible to the public, and that customers choose whether to share their data with other Flock customers across the network. In 2025 an Illinois Secretary of State audit found Flock allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois license plate cameras in violation of state law, and 404 Media reported a Texas deputy searched more than 83,000 Flock cameras nationwide while looking for a woman said to have self-administered an abortion. In August 2026 Flock announced a package of changes — a 7-day default retention period, mandatory misuse detection and case codes, an independent security review by Bishop Fox, and a coordinated vulnerability disclosure program — while also acknowledging that recent audit reviews had been associated with arrests of several law enforcement officers who allegedly abused the system; the Electronic Frontier Foundation characterized the reforms as insufficient. Scores here are our opinion, derived from the published methodology and the sourced claims below.
TRACK RECORD
1 ENFORCEMENT ACTION
[2025-08-25]
On 2025-08-25, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced that his office's audit found Flock Safety allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois license plate cameras in violation of Illinois state law; the Secretary ordered Flock to shut off CBP's access, and Flock paused its pilot with CBP and other federal agencies nationwide. The audit also found Flock did not have proper safeguards in place for data sharing.
Flock's Trust Center states the ALPR system does not collect biometric data, driver information, or facial recognition data — the cameras capture license plate images, vehicle characteristics, timestamps, and camera location, and the system does not use facial recognition.
Flock Safety's License Plate Reader Policy states that LPR data includes license plate images, vehicle images, vehicle characteristics (e.g. color, make), plate number and state, date, time, and camera location, and that the images stored in the system are collected from areas visible to the public — capture of passing vehicles is not limited to people who use or have any relationship with Flock or its customers.
In August 2026, Flock announced it was cutting its recommended default ALPR data retention period from 30 days to 7 days, with an 'Evidence Mode' for preserving specific data tied to active investigations; its LPR Policy separately states LPR data is hard deleted on a rolling 7-day basis by default. Existing customers keep their current retention periods unless they adopt the new recommendation.
Flock's privacy notice names the operating entity behind the product: Flock Group Inc d/b/a Flock Safety and its subsidiaries and affiliates, which the notice collectively defines as 'Flock.'
404 Media reported in May 2025 that Texas authorities performed a nationwide search of more than 83,000 Flock automatic license plate reader cameras while looking for a woman they said had a self-administered abortion — including cameras in states where abortion is legal, such as Washington and Illinois — demonstrating that a single agency's search can reach across the shared nationwide camera network.
In October 2025, Ring and Flock Safety announced a planned integration that would let public safety agencies send footage requests to Ring camera owners through Flock's software; in February 2026 Ring announced the companies had jointly canceled the planned integration before launch, stating that no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety.
Flock's License Plate Reader Policy states LPR data gathered on behalf of customers is owned by the customer, that customers choose whether to share LPR data with other Flock customers in accordance with their laws and policies, and that Flock will not sell, publish, exchange, or disclose customer LPR data for commercial purposes — while also reserving that Flock may access, use, preserve, or disclose LPR data to law enforcement authorities, government officials, or third parties if legally required or under a good-faith belief it is reasonably necessary.
In August 2026, Flock introduced offense filtering for inter-agency sharing: cities can now choose which offense types other agencies are permitted to search their cameras for — for example, allowing searches for a stolen vehicle, missing person, or violent crime while blocking searches related to immigration enforcement.
On 2025-08-25, Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced that his office's audit found Flock Safety allowed U.S. Customs and Border Protection to access Illinois license plate cameras in violation of Illinois state law; the Secretary ordered Flock to shut off CBP's access, and Flock paused its pilot with CBP and other federal agencies nationwide. The audit also found Flock did not have proper safeguards in place for data sharing.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation, in an August 2026 analysis by Matthew Guariglia, described Flock Safety as 'the embattled vendor of mass surveillance technology' and characterized its 2026 reforms as responding to 'justified nationwide anger that has seen scores of towns cancel or suspend their contracts with the company' — EFF's assessment was that the reforms are 'a combination of long overdue changes along with some cosmetic fixes that fail to address the fundamental dangers of this technology.'
In its August 2026 safeguards announcement, Flock's CEO acknowledged that reviews from its Audit Assistance misuse-detection feature 'have been associated with arrests of several law enforcement officers who allegedly abused the system,' and announced remediation measures: mandatory Audit Assistance and case codes for all law enforcement customers by end of year, proactive lockout of abnormal user activity, mandatory multi-factor authentication, an independent security review by the firm Bishop Fox with a summary of findings to be published, a coordinated vulnerability disclosure program, and more than 1,500 agency-published Flock Transparency Portals.
Flock's own blog describes its patented Vehicle Fingerprint technology: the camera captures vehicle make, color, type, license plate, plate state, missing/covered/paper plates, and over 20 unique vehicle details such as roof racks and bumper stickers, making vehicles identifiable and searchable across the camera network even when no readable license plate is present.
Flock's website privacy notice discloses that the flocksafety.com site may use cookies for marketing, analytic, personalization, and essential purposes — including targeting cookies used by third-party partners such as Google Ads for personalized ads, with data retained typically up to 24 months.