Our position in one sentence: We oppose routine, searchable collection of vehicle-location data about people who are not suspected of wrongdoing. Safeguards can reduce some harms, but our goal is nonrenewal and removal of the mass-tracking infrastructure.
What is an automated license plate reader?
An automated license plate reader, usually called an ALPR or LPR, is a camera system designed to capture information about vehicles as they pass.
Depending on the system, that can include the plate, date and time, location, vehicle type, color, direction of travel and other visible characteristics.
The information can then be stored and searched later.
How much can these systems actually see? →
Is every roadside camera a Flock camera?
No.
Roadside equipment can serve many purposes. Some cameras monitor traffic, support signals, provide general security or perform automated plate recognition. Flock is one vendor among several.
That is why we try to verify equipment before labeling it.
Is every ALPR camera made by Flock?
No.
Flock Safety is a prominent vendor, but Metro Detroit agencies have also used other systems, including Motorola/Vigilant and Genetec.
Our campaign is ultimately about the surveillance practice, not one company.
What does “DeFlock” mean?
At the simplest level:
Remove the covered automated mass-surveillance infrastructure and do not renew it.
Is DeFlock Metro Detroit part of DeFlock.org?
DeFlock Metro Detroit is an independent, DeFlock-aligned local civic effort.
We use resources and principles from the wider movement and contribute useful findings where appropriate while organizing locally. DeFlock’s public local-groups directory describes listed groups as independently run and not affiliated with DeFlock.
We do not describe DeFlock Metro Detroit as an official chapter, legal affiliate or representative of DeFlock. We intend to seek public listing/support through DeFlock as the local effort develops.
Are you saying license plate readers are illegal?
No.
That would overstate the law.
The United States Supreme Court has recognized significant Fourth Amendment protections for certain kinds of digital location information, while ALPR-specific courts have reached different results depending on the facts.
We believe large searchable ALPR networks raise serious constitutional concerns, but our policy case does not depend on claiming the Supreme Court already banned Flock.
Do police need a warrant to search Flock for my plate?
There is no universal rule making every ALPR search require a warrant.
The answer can depend on the kind and scale of information sought, applicable law, agency policy and the facts of the investigation. Courts continue to address how constitutional location-privacy principles apply to ALPR networks.
A municipality can adopt stronger local safeguards than the constitutional minimum, but our campaign does not claim that every present-day search is already warrantless or unconstitutional.
Read the Fourth Amendment and Michigan-law guides →
Then why remove them if a court might allow them?
Because legal and good public policy are not the same thing.
Government can choose not to exercise a surveillance power even when a court would permit it.
Aren’t license plates already public?
They are publicly visible.
The issue is not one person seeing one plate once.
It is computers routinely recording, storing, searching and connecting large numbers of observations afterward.
Seeing is not the same as tracking.
If I drive in public, why should I expect privacy?
Privacy is not the same thing as invisibility.
You can be observable in public without expecting every movement to be automatically remembered, indexed and searchable later.
If I have nothing to hide, why should I care?
Privacy is not the same as secrecy.
We close restroom doors, draw curtains, use passwords and choose who receives our personal information. Most people do not publish a minute-by-minute log of everywhere they go. None of that implies wrongdoing.
Being law-abiding does not eliminate a legitimate interest in limiting what government routinely collects, searches and combines.
Aren’t cameras everywhere already?
Yes, many places have security cameras, phones generate location information and commercial services collect extensive data. Those are real privacy issues too.
They are not automatically equivalent. An ordinary camera may require manual review. An ALPR is designed to extract and index vehicle observations with time and location for rapid later search and possible network access. Different systems also have different operators, purposes, legal rules and opt-out possibilities.
The existence of one invasive system is not a reason to add another.
See the side-by-side comparison →
What is the mosaic idea?
Think of a mosaic made from lots of small tiles.
One tile tells you almost nothing. Enough tiles reveal a picture.
One vehicle sighting may reveal little. Hundreds of observations can reveal routines, relationships and places someone regularly visits.
Does Flock use facial recognition?
Flock states that its standard LPR systems do not use facial recognition.
Its broader platform includes separate video-search tools that can search people using visible, non-biometric characteristics such as clothing or accessories.
Those are different capabilities.
We do not need to call something facial recognition when it is not.
What are Condor and Raven?
Condor is Flock’s video-camera line, including fixed and pan/tilt/zoom products. Flock’s Guardian Mode materials say Condor can automatically detect, follow and zoom toward people or vehicles in view. Raven was the name used for Flock’s acoustic gunshot-detection sensors.
Current evidence does not support saying every Condor camera performs facial recognition or that Raven records every ordinary conversation. The privacy concern is what video, people alerts, audio-event clips and vehicle observations can reveal—especially when connected in one platform.
In December 2025, reporters documented at least 60 Condor interfaces exposed to the public internet without a login, including live and archived footage of ordinary people and children on a playground. Flock said a limited carrier-testing configuration caused the exposure and that it corrected the problem. That incident does not prove every Condor camera was exposed; it proves that a consequential deployment failure occurred.
Read the sourced Raven and Condor guide →
Can Flock search for or track people by what they are wearing?
Flock says its standard roadside LPR cameras are vehicle-focused and do not run people searches.
Its broader platform includes compatible video systems that can search enabled footage for people by visible, non-biometric characteristics such as clothing and accessories. Condor video cameras can also provide live and recorded video, person alerts and pan/tilt/zoom capabilities.
Searchable observations can reveal movement even when the vendor describes them as separate “point sightings” rather than continuous tracking.
Read the documented capabilities and incidents →
Do these systems only search plates?
No.
Modern vehicle-surveillance systems can search visible vehicle characteristics, and Flock publicly markets natural-language and pattern-oriented tools as well.
Which capabilities a particular department actually has is a separate question.
Vendor capability does not prove local use.
What does AI have to do with it?
Documented Flock tools use machine learning or AI-assisted functions to read plates, classify visible vehicle characteristics and search enabled evidence using written descriptions. Separate compatible video can support searches for people by visible clothing or accessories.
That does not mean the system can read minds, predict everything about a person or that every municipality enabled every feature. Ask what the vendor offers, what the local agency purchased and what audit records show was actually used.
Understand the documented search and data-fusion capabilities →
Can police search every Flock camera in America?
Not automatically.
Flock supports cross-agency sharing, but access depends on agencies, settings, permissions and agreements.
That is why we ask both how many cameras a municipality owns and how much outside information its users can actually access.
Can one police department see another department’s data?
Potentially, depending on the agencies, products, permissions and sharing settings.
Flock describes sharing as customer-controlled rather than automatically universal. That makes the local configuration—not a generic promise—the important fact. Ask which partners can search local records, which outside networks local users can search and whether indirect requests are permitted.
Understand both directions of sharing →
Does Flock sell my data?
Flock says customers own their data and that it does not sell customer data. We have not established evidence supporting a broad claim that Flock sells everyone’s location records.
That answer does not resolve cross-agency sharing, authorized vendor access, legal demands, exports, security incidents or information copied into another system. Those are separate questions and should be evaluated with contracts, settings and audit records.
How long is the data kept?
It depends on the system, agency, contract, configuration and applicable law.
Flock’s current public website promotes a seven-day recommendation/default for routine law-enforcement ALPR retention, down from 30 days, while some current Flock legal material still contains older 30-day language.
We do not assume seven days, 30 days or any other period for a Metro Detroit agency without local evidence. We verify the contract, policy and configuration.
Does seven-day deletion mean the information is gone everywhere?
Not necessarily.
Routine retention is different from a record selected for an investigation, downloaded, exported, preserved, placed in a report or transferred into another evidence system. Flock’s current evidence policy expressly describes downloads, evidence preservation and approved extended retention.
Understand retention, preservation and exports →
Why not just shorten retention to seven days?
Seven days is less risky than 30 days because fewer routine historical observations remain immediately available.
It does not eliminate collection, immediate searches, alerts, network access, sharing, false matches, insider misuse, preserved evidence, exported copies or a later policy change. Shorter retention is a harm-reduction measure, not non-collection.
Why not keep the cameras and require a warrant?
A warrant requirement can be a stronger safeguard for searches where the law or local policy requires one.
It still leaves the collection infrastructure and routine database in place. It also would not necessarily govern every alert, hot-list function, administrative use or data-sharing path. Our legal system does not currently impose one universal warrant rule on every ALPR search.
Read the current legal landscape →
Don’t audit logs stop abuse?
Audit logs can help detect or investigate misuse.
They do not make misuse impossible and they do not prevent the underlying location database from being created.
Has Flock ever been hacked?
The answer depends on what is being claimed.
We have not established a verified breach of Flock’s central cloud platform involving customer-data exfiltration. But documented security events include Condor camera interfaces exposed without authentication, reported extraction of data from a physically removed camera and laboratory research documenting dozens of device and software vulnerabilities.
Those are different from a central-cloud breach, and a vulnerability is not proof that it was exploited against a customer. But they are not “nothing.” The accurate question is what failed, what access was required, what data was exposed, whether exploitation is known and what was fixed—not whether every event fits one narrow definition of “hack.”
See the sources and careful distinctions →
Have these systems actually been abused?
Yes, documented cases include inappropriate searches, cross-jurisdictional sensitive investigations, access-control problems and errors that contributed to innocent people being subjected to frightening encounters.
We distinguish charges, allegations, official findings, credible reporting and confirmed facts carefully.
Documented Misuse, Failures & Harm →
Isn’t this just a few bad users?
Individual misuse is only one part of the objection.
The system’s normal design creates a searchable collection of observations about large numbers of people who are not suspected of wrongdoing. Personal misuse, false matches, configuration failures, sensitive searches and security incidents are additional risks created after that database exists.
The case for removal does not depend on claiming every user is bad.
Are you saying every police officer abuses these systems?
No.
Powerful databases create risk even when most users act appropriately.
People make mistakes, credentials are misused, policies are violated and systems are configured incorrectly.
Don’t Flock cameras help solve crimes?
Sometimes, yes. ALPRs can help locate wanted or stolen vehicles and generate useful investigative leads.
Case-solving utility is different from evidence that a deployment broadly reduced crime. The policy question is whether the demonstrated benefit justifies routinely creating searchable location records about ordinary traffic, including people who were never suspected of wrongdoing.
What effectiveness research actually shows →
Public Safety Without Mass Tracking →
So what should police use instead?
There is no single replacement tool for every case.
Police already use witnesses, physical evidence, security footage, forensics, warrants, lawful digital evidence, public tips, open-source research, interviews and targeted surveillance.
We support strong investigations focused on actual evidence and legitimate investigative needs.
Are you anti-police?
No.
Opposing a surveillance system is not the same thing as opposing police officers.
Police can explain why they value the system. Residents can decide the privacy tradeoff is too high.
That is normal democratic government.
For Police & Public-Safety Professionals →
Isn’t this a local decision?
Yes—and civic advocacy is part of local decision-making.
Residents and elected officials decide whether a municipality buys, renews or removes a system. DeFlock Metro Detroit obtains records, explains the technology and helps local residents participate before contracts quietly renew. Local control includes the right to support the cameras and the right to organize against them.
Whenever possible, a municipal campaign should be led or visibly supported by people who live there.
My phone already tracks me. Why is Flock different?
Phone and data-broker tracking can be deeply invasive. The difference is not that commercial tracking is harmless.
The data holder, purpose, consent or opt-out choices, legal process and government access paths can differ. A purpose-built law-enforcement search network adds another surveillance layer; existing privacy problems do not justify creating it.
What happens when the camera is wrong?
An incorrect plate read, stale hot-list record, bad manual entry or failure to verify can turn an automated lead into a stop involving the wrong vehicle or person.
The system result should be independently checked against the plate image, physical plate, vehicle description and originating database before enforcement action. Documented cases show that correction can come only after a frightening encounter has begun.
See the false-match and verification guide →
Are you left-wing or right-wing?
Neither is a membership requirement.
People reach this issue through civil liberties, limited government, accountability, privacy, fiscal responsibility, gun-owner privacy, reproductive privacy, immigration concerns, religious freedom or simply not wanting to be tracked.
Why removal instead of better rules?
Better safeguards can reduce harm while a system exists.
They do not resolve our underlying objection that information about ordinary people is collected first.
Our goal is complete removal and nonrenewal.
Is a presentation from Flock or the police enough to evaluate the system?
No single advocate’s presentation is enough—including ours.
Flock publicly offers agencies council-communication guidance and an objection-handling playbook. That does not prove deception; it means the vendor is actively helping customers make the case for its product.
Compare presentations with the signed contract, product entitlements, sharing settings, audit logs, incident notices, independent reporting and the next renewal decision.
Compare common claims with the public record →
Do you oppose every camera?
No.
This campaign is focused on government surveillance and government-accessible systems that routinely build searchable movement records, especially networked vehicle-surveillance infrastructure.
Private camera ecosystems can raise their own serious privacy issues, but that is a broader subject than this campaign’s core scope.
Can I use Google Street View to add cameras to the DeFlock map?
Not as a substitute for the physical verification required by DeFlock’s current mapping rules.
Remote research can generate leads. Actual additions and updates should follow DeFlock’s current official instructions.
Camera Mapping & Verification →
Can I photograph the cameras?
From a lawful public location, documentation may be useful.
Do it safely. Do not trespass, obstruct traffic or create a dangerous roadside situation.
Leave the equipment alone.
Can I put stickers on, cover or disable the cameras?
No.
No stickers, paint, covers, magnets, wire cutting, turning, jamming, vandalism, hacking or interference.
Our strategy is to make the government remove them lawfully.
A damaged camera can be replaced.
A cancelled contract is much more interesting.
Can I file a Michigan FOIA anonymously?
Generally, Michigan FOIA has requester-identification requirements that limit anonymity for ordinary requesters.
Do not invent a fake legal requester.
Check whether somebody already requested the record first.
Find & Request Public Records →
Should everyone send the same FOIA request?
No.
Coordinated, focused requests are more useful than flooding a public body with duplicates.
Do I have to speak at a public meeting to help?
No.
You can research, map, find records, design materials, privately contact an official, prepare someone else or simply stay informed.
Do I have to use my legal name to join?
For ordinary participation through DeFlock Metro Detroit, our plan is to allow a name or alias sufficient for communication.
Certain outside activities, including some government processes and public-record requests, may require legal identifying information.
Is joining anonymous?
We do not promise anonymity.
Online systems and public civic participation create records.
Our approach is to minimize unnecessary information, not promise something technology cannot guarantee.
Why does the organizer use “D”?
D is the public organizer handle for the person coordinating DeFlock Metro Detroit.
The organizer uses a public handle so the work can be judged by the evidence, the contracts and the decisions local governments make rather than by a personal brand.
Do I need to live in Redford to join?
No.
Our deepest hands-on focus begins in Redford, with Livonia the most natural nearby expansion as capacity permits.
Residents elsewhere in Metro Detroit are especially useful because sustainable local efforts should increasingly belong to people who live there.
Why aren’t you researching every municipality yourselves?
Because a durable regional effort cannot depend on one central organizer trying to research every contract, attend every meeting and run every local campaign.
The better model is local residents organizing where they live while DeFlock Metro Detroit supplies shared evidence standards, guides, materials and coordination.
My city is not listed. Does that mean there are no cameras?
No.
We deliberately use a curated Metro Detroit list instead of pretending we have completed research across every municipality.
If your community is not covered deeply yet, that may be where you come in.
Can I start a local effort?
Yes.
You do not need to create a new organization on day one.
Join and choose Help organize my municipality.
Can government officials or police contact you?
Yes.
If we have an outdated record, missing context or incorrect information, send the stronger evidence.
We may still disagree about the policy. We want the facts right.
Do you accept tips?
You can send ordinary records, links and leads through the normal contact process.
A normal form or email should not be assumed to be a secure anonymous tip system.
Can I make my own materials?
Yes, especially personal advocacy materials.
If you use the official DeFlock Metro Detroit logo or present something as an official publication, coordinate first so the facts and organizational claims are accurate.
Campaign Materials & Brand Use →
What if I disagree with another participant about politics?
Congratulations. You have met another human being.
Keep unrelated political fights out of the campaign.
If you both want the surveillance system removed, you already have the relevant thing in common.
How do I know your information is accurate?
Do not simply assume it is.
We try to link factual claims to contracts, government records, policies, court opinions, vendor materials, audits and credible reporting.
We distinguish what is confirmed from what remains uncertain.
What is the fastest way to help?
Join. Tell us your municipality. Choose one way you would like to begin participating.
Then take one useful next step.