"Flock Safety provides ALPR technology to thousands of law enforcement agencies. The company installs cameras throughout their jurisdictions, and these cameras photograph every car that passes, documenting the license plate, color, make, model and other distinguishing characteristics. This data is paired with time and location, and uploaded to a massive searchable database. Flock Safety encourages agencies to share the data they collect broadly with other agencies across the country. It is common for an agency to search thousands of networks nationwide even when they don't have reason to believe a targeted vehicle left the region."
"But as news cameras showed protesters filling streets of cities across the country, law enforcement officers-including U.S. Border Patrol agents-were quietly watching those same streets through different lenses: Flock Safety automated license plate readers (ALPRs) that tracked every passing car."
"Via public records requests, EFF obtained datasets representing more than 12 million searches logged by more than 3,900 agencies between December 2024 and October 2025. The data shows that agencies logged hundreds of searches related to the protests in February, the protests in April, the protests in June and October, and other protests in between."
Flock Safety's cameras photograph every passing car, recording license plate, vehicle color, make, model, and other distinguishing characteristics linked to time and location. Collected images and metadata are uploaded to a centralized, searchable national database that agencies are encouraged to share broadly. Thousands of law enforcement agencies have access to ALPR networks, and agencies commonly search thousands of networks nationwide without local jurisdictional reason. Datasets covering December 2024 through October 2025 document more than 12 million searches logged by over 3,900 agencies, including hundreds of searches connected to protests across multiple months. Tulsa Police logged at least 38 protest-related searches.
Read at Electronic Frontier Foundation
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]