Utterly Flocked: "We-Don't-Track-People"-Firm Deploys Nationwide Network of Warrantless People-Tracking Cameras
License plate readers were just the beginning...
This article originally appeared on ZeroHedge and was republished with permission.
Guest post by Tyler Durden
Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based private surveillance firm, insists its cameras are not tracking people. Yet its own systems, training materials, and expanding product line tell a different story -one of a rapidly growing, warrantless mass surveillance infrastructure that logs vehicle movements, follows pedestrians with AI, and feeds data-hungry police departments across the country.
A new investigative report highlights how Flock’s network - now encompassing tens of thousands of cameras - enables police to reconstruct months of travel history for any vehicle with a few clicks, no warrant required. Security researchers and activists are pushing back, mapping the devices and exposing security lapses that leave feeds openly accessible online.
DeFlock and the Scale of the Panopticon
In Boulder, Colorado, activist Will Freeman operates DeFlock.org, which has mapped over 88,000 Flock cameras nationwide. The app reveals camera locations and orientations, underscoring how pervasive the network has become in public spaces. Flock’s license plate readers snap time-stamped photos of every passing vehicle, allowing historical queries spanning up to 30 days.
As security researcher Benn Jordan noted, plotting that data on a map effectively places a month-long GPS tracker on your car. Jordan, who previously discovered dozens of Flock cameras streaming publicly, described AI-driven features that zoom in and follow individuals - whether persons of interest or random passersby, Atlanta News First reports.
As we’ve previously reported on the battle brewing between mass surveillance tech and individual liberty, tools sold for “public safety” quietly erode Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.
Company Denials vs. Training Videos and Hardware Reality
Flock’s Chief Communications Officer Josh Thomas claims the company aids in solving around 700,000 crimes annually. He disputes “tracking” characterizations, arguing the system captures discrete points in time rather than continuous monitoring.
However, Flock’s own webinars contradict this:
“The example of tracking that vehicle from location to location to location,” a Flock webinar instructor said.
“And you’re able to track your suspect’s movements,” another webinar showed.
In one training video, a police officer described using Flock cameras to follow a suspect across state lines: “And we were able to track him all the way over to another state, in Kentucky.”
Flock’s Condor cameras go further: These pan-tilt-zoom units use AI to detect and automatically follow human movement. When confronted, Thomas maintained the company does not track people, attributing features like “Guardian Mode” to mere object detection rather than persistent tracking. Yet demonstrations show the cameras panning and tilting in real-time to keep subjects in frame.
Critics like Jordan suggest the pedestrian-tracking hardware emerged conveniently after earlier denials that Flock only captured license plates.
Security Nightmares and Misuse
Jordan and collaborators found over 70 Condor cameras streaming openly online without passwords. He published the video on YouTube along with 404 Media.
“I watched a man leave his house in the morning. I watched a woman jogging alone on a forest trail in Georgia,” Jordan said.
Thomas said the exposure was an accident caused by Verizon sending the wrong SIM cards with public IP addresses on roughly 60-70 devices, which were fixed once discovered. Verizon did not respond to requests for comment.
Police officers nationwide have been arrested for using Flock cameras to stalk former partners and love interests. Freeman and Jordan warn that human nature makes such misuse inevitable in a system logging everyone’s movements by default. Thomas pointed to audit logs and accountability measures, but activists argue the architecture itself invites overreach.
The “Safety” Trade-Off and Pushback
Flock touts its role in preventing mass violence and solving crimes, with Thomas positioning the company on the side of those “fighting to stop” such threats. Yet more than two dozen cities, including Denver, have canceled contracts amid privacy concerns and questions over data access.
Freeman, demonstrating DeFlock’s route-planning feature that avoids camera-dense paths (turning a quick 1.7-mile trip into a 14-minute detour), argues the default of logging all citizens - not just suspects - is the core problem. He plans to keep “tracking the trackers” in the absence of oversight.
This saga fits a familiar pattern of privatized surveillance creep: Companies like Flock build the infrastructure, police query it with minimal friction, and civil liberties erode under the banner of security. As similar systems proliferate, the question remains whether Americans are willing to accept a perpetual digital dragnet in exchange for promised safety.
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The Patriot Act, passed by the Republicans in the Bush administration, started this. It's still in effect. Both Dems and Repubs are supporting it. Sadly, the average American accepts that the surveillance is for our own safety. People are not resisting. People are accepting all of this because they're afraid. Our real problem is fear. Americans are frightened, disconnected from each other, and looking for a big, strong government to protect them. We need to reach out and get people talking to each other again, get people watching each other's backs again, so that people feel empowered, not frightened.
And Americans will do nothing about it.