Flock Cameras Aren’t the Only Cameras We Should Be Worried About

Privacy is starting to feel like a weird thing to ask for.

Say you do not like license plate cameras tracking where your vehicle goes and someone asks what you have to hide.

Turn off location access for an app and someone acts like you are being paranoid.

Use a VPN, cover a webcam, use a privacy-focused phone, avoid cloud storage, or question where your camera footage is being saved and suddenly you are the crazy one.

But look around.

Maybe the people talking about "Big Brother" 10 or 20 years ago were not completely crazy after all.

We now willingly carry phones that know our location, have cameras and microphones pointed at us, install apps that ask for access to our contacts and photos, put internet-connected cameras inside our homes, and drive past networks of cameras that can record our vehicles as we move around town.

That does not mean all of this technology is evil.

A lot of it is extremely useful.

The problem is how quickly useful technology can turn into something else when access, security, and human judgment fail.

Flock cameras are a perfect example.

What Flock actually does

Flock Safety makes automated license plate readers, usually called ALPR cameras.

They can read license plates and collect information about vehicles passing the camera, including the time and location.

Police departments can search that information during investigations or receive alerts when a vehicle connected to something like a stolen-car report passes a camera.

There are absolutely good reasons for that technology to exist.

If a child is kidnapped and police know the suspect vehicle, being able to locate that vehicle quickly could save a life.

If someone steals a car, having cameras spot it around town can help police recover it.

Police departments have also reported using Flock information while investigating shootings, robberies, stolen vehicles, and other serious crimes.

For example, Littleton Police in Colorado said in April 2026 that Flock data from a neighboring jurisdiction was one of several pieces of information used during an investigation into a shooting. Police later located the suspect, who they said confessed, and recovered the firearm.

That is a good use of technology.

The problem is not that Flock can help police.

The problem is what happens when the same system is treated like it cannot be wrong, or when someone with access decides to use it for something it was never meant for.

The package theft case is exactly what worries people

One Flock story has stuck with a lot of people.

In September 2025, police showed up at the home of Colorado resident Chrisanna Elser and accused her of stealing a $25 package.

A Flock system had recorded her Rivian driving through the nearby town around the time of the theft.

According to reporting by The Colorado Sun, the officer told her he had "no doubt" she had taken the package.

He also told her that cameras were so common in the town that a person could barely come or go without police knowing.

There was one pretty big problem.

She did not steal the package.

Elser had driven through the area because she had a tailor appointment.

She ended up gathering her own digital evidence, including information from her phone, video from her Rivian, GPS records, surveillance from the tailor, and other records showing where she had actually been.

The police later dropped the case.

Think about how backwards that feels.

Technology was used to accuse someone of a crime.

Then that person had to use even more technology to prove the accusation was wrong.

The officer was later reprimanded and ordered to take additional training.

The actual package thief was not identified in the reporting.

That story is not proof that every Flock camera is bad.

It is proof that a camera result should never replace common sense.

A vehicle passing through an area does not automatically mean its owner committed a crime there.

An automated system should give investigators a lead.

It should not give someone absolute confidence before all the facts are checked.

Then there are the stalking cases

This is where things get harder to defend.

In August 2026, The Washington Post reported that at least 50 law enforcement officers had been accused, charged, or convicted of using Flock or other license plate reader systems to spy on people, including girlfriends, wives, exes, and romantic interests.

More cases have continued to come out.

A former Costa Mesa police officer in California pleaded guilty in 2026 after prosecutors said he improperly used law enforcement systems, including Flock cameras, while tracking his wife, a former mistress, and romantic rivals.

In North Carolina, police said an officer accessed a Flock system 31 times for personal reasons to track her boyfriend's ex-wife.

In South Carolina, another officer was fired after reportedly searching an ex-partner's plate 166 times.

In Massachusetts, New Bedford temporarily suspended its Flock program while investigating allegations that an officer used the cameras to track an ex-girlfriend.

These are not theoretical privacy concerns anymore.

They happened.

And notice what the problem was.

The cameras did not necessarily get hacked.

The employees already had access.

That matters because cybersecurity is not only about stopping a hacker sitting somewhere overseas.

Sometimes the person you need protection from already has a username and password.

Flock is making changes

Flock deserves credit for responding to the problem.

On August 13, 2026, the company announced stronger safeguards after the recent reports of police misuse.

Among the changes, Flock said it was moving toward a seven-day default retention period for ALPR data, requiring case codes for searches, requiring its audit-assistance system, adding automated reviews for unusual activity, strengthening multi-factor authentication, and adding other controls.

Those are good changes.

They are also an admission that controls matter.

A system like this cannot depend only on trusting every person who gets an account.

That is not how good security works.

Good security assumes someone will eventually make a mistake, have their account stolen, ignore policy, or deliberately misuse access.

The system should be designed around that possibility from the beginning.

Taxpayer funded should mean public accountability

This is another part of the Flock conversation that deserves more attention.

If a city or police department buys cameras using taxpayer money, the public should have meaningful access to information about that system.

People should be able to see:

Where public cameras are being used

How much taxpayers are paying

What the contract says

How long information is kept

Which agencies can access it

How many searches are being performed

What reasons searches are being performed for

How often cameras produce useful results

How often alerts turn out to be wrong

Whether employees have been disciplined for misuse

Whether information is being shared with other agencies

How the system is being audited

Some agencies already publish Flock transparency portals that show things like camera counts, retention periods, search totals, sharing partners, and policies.

Some even make search audit information available to the public.

That is a good direction.

But public access needs one important limit.

Giving taxpayers oversight does not mean creating a website where anybody can type in an ex-girlfriend's license plate and see everywhere she has driven.

That would turn a privacy problem into an even bigger privacy problem.

Public access should mean public accountability.

Contracts, policies, costs, statistics, sharing arrangements, audit records, disciplinary findings, and properly redacted search logs should be open whenever the law allows.

Raw location histories tied to individual people should not become an open stalking tool.

The public paid for the system.

The public deserves to know how the system is being used.

There is a difference between transparency and giving everyone surveillance powers.

But Flock is only part of the problem

Here is where the privacy conversation gets uncomfortable.

It is easy to point at a Flock camera on a pole and say that government surveillance is getting out of control.

Then people go home and walk past three internet-connected cameras they installed themselves.

There might be a camera at the front door.

Another in the backyard.

One in the living room.

Maybe even one watching a baby or child sleep.

Then there are smart televisions, speakers, watches, thermostats, appliances, door locks, garage doors, robot vacuums, alarm systems, toys, and other connected devices.

Most of these devices are sold based on convenience.

Connect the camera to Wi-Fi.

Download the app.

Create an account.

Now the video is in "the cloud."

But what exactly is the cloud?

The cloud is not some magical place floating above the house.

It is somebody else's computer.

Usually a large group of servers sitting inside one or more data centers.

Who operates those servers?

Where are they?

Which company controls the account?

Which other companies process the information?

How long is the footage stored?

Is it encrypted?

Can employees access it?

Can contractors access it?

What happens after the account is deleted?

What happens if the company gets hacked?

What happens if the company is sold?

Most people have no idea.

They just clicked Accept.

The Ring case should make everyone pay attention

This is not a made-up concern.

The Federal Trade Commission took action against Ring, the Amazon-owned home security camera company, over serious privacy and security failures.

The FTC alleged that Ring had allowed employees and contractors overly broad access to customer videos and failed to put proper safeguards in place.

According to the FTC, those failures allowed employees to improperly view customer videos and also left customers vulnerable to hackers taking control of accounts, cameras, and recordings.

The FTC complaint even discussed cameras being placed in extremely private parts of the home.

Ring itself had marketed indoor cameras for uses that included monitoring children.

Think about that for a second.

A camera may be purchased because a parent wants to keep a child safer.

That same camera creates a live internet-connected window into one of the most private places in the house.

The FTC said Ring's past controls were not good enough to prevent inappropriate employee access.

Ring later agreed to major privacy and security changes, and the FTC has distributed millions of dollars in refunds connected with the settlement.

This does not mean current Ring cameras are secretly being watched by employees.

The case involved past practices and led to stronger requirements.

But it proves the concern itself is real.

The danger is not always the camera.

It is who can get to what the camera sees.

Foreign devices deserve questions too, but facts matter

There is another side of this that gets oversimplified.

A lot of electronics sold in the United States are manufactured overseas.

That includes cameras and other IoT devices.

People sometimes jump from that fact directly to saying a foreign government can watch through every foreign-made camera.

That is not something that can honestly be claimed without evidence.

Where something is manufactured does not automatically tell us where its cloud data is stored or who can access it.

But supply chain security is still a real issue.

The U.S. government has taken it seriously.

The Federal Communications Commission has placed certain communications and video surveillance equipment from companies including Hikvision and Dahua on its Covered List for certain national-security and public-safety uses.

In 2022, the FCC adopted rules blocking authorization of covered equipment that it determined posed an unacceptable risk to U.S. national security.

That does not mean every inexpensive camera manufactured in China is spying for China.

It means people should stop treating the manufacturer, software, cloud provider, and country of operation as details that do not matter.

Before putting an internet-connected camera in a bedroom, people should know who made it.

They should know whether the company still provides security updates.

They should know where recordings are stored.

They should know whether local-only recording is available.

They should know whether two-factor authentication exists.

They should know what happens when the company shuts down.

And maybe most importantly, they should ask whether that camera really needs to be connected to the internet at all.

Phones are another giant privacy hole

Cameras are easy to see.

Apps are harder.

Install a flashlight app and it wants location.

Install a social app and it wants contacts.

Install another app and it asks for photos.

Then microphone access.

Then the camera.

Then nearby devices.

Then notifications.

Then precise location.

People tap Allow because they want the screen to go away.

Android itself describes camera, microphone, and location permissions as access to particularly sensitive information.

Modern versions of Android now include privacy dashboards showing which apps have accessed location, the camera, or the microphone.

Android also provides one-time permissions and lets users block camera and microphone access.

Those features exist for a reason.

Permissions matter.

An app should not get access simply because it asked.

A weather app might need approximate location.

Why does it need the microphone?

A photo editing app may need selected photos.

Why does it need the entire contact list?

A game might need internet access.

Why does it need precise location all the time?

Sometimes there is a valid answer.

Sometimes there is not.

People should feel completely normal pressing Don't Allow.

Privacy is not illegal

This may be the biggest point of all.

People who care about privacy are often treated like they are hiding something.

That idea needs to go away.

Closing curtains does not make someone a criminal.

Locking a phone does not make someone a criminal.

Encrypting files does not make someone a criminal.

Using a VPN does not make someone a criminal.

Turning off location history does not make someone a criminal.

Blocking unnecessary app permissions does not make someone a criminal.

Questioning government cameras does not make someone a criminal.

Wanting a camera out of a child's bedroom does not make someone paranoid.

Privacy is a normal boundary.

People should not have to explain why they do not want strangers, companies, employees, police officers, advertisers, hackers, or random apps knowing everything about them.

There does not need to be something bad to hide.

Sometimes something is simply nobody else's business.

The "crazy privacy people" do not look so crazy anymore

Years ago, someone putting tape over a webcam might have been laughed at.

Someone saying smart devices could become security problems sounded paranoid.

Someone worrying about companies watching through cameras sounded extreme.

Someone warning that governments could build searchable databases of everyday movements sounded like they had watched too many movies.

Now the FTC has brought a case involving employees accessing private home-camera footage.

The FCC has national-security restrictions involving certain surveillance equipment.

Android has built an entire privacy dashboard around tracking access to cameras, microphones, and location.

Police departments are buying networks of automated license plate readers.

Officers have actually been accused and convicted of using surveillance databases to track people in their personal lives.

None of that means every old conspiracy theory was correct.

It means asking questions was not crazy.

Maybe privacy should be the default question

Technology does a lot of good.

Flock cameras can help find stolen cars and dangerous suspects.

Home cameras can catch burglars and let parents check on their kids.

Smart devices can make homes easier to manage.

Apps can make everyday life more convenient.

Cloud storage can protect files when a device is lost or destroyed.

Nobody needs to throw all of that away.

But convenience should not automatically win every time privacy comes up.

Before installing something, ask what it collects.

Before granting a permission, ask why it needs it.

Before putting a camera inside a home, ask where the video goes.

Before a city puts up surveillance cameras, ask who can search them.

Before trusting an automated result, check whether the result actually makes sense.

And before calling someone paranoid for wanting privacy, maybe look around.

The cameras are already on the roads.

The cameras are already in the houses.

The microphones are already in the pockets.

The apps already have the permissions.

The information is already moving into data centers most people will never see.

Wanting some control over that does not sound crazy at all.

It sounds responsible.

Written by Ben Treder

I build websites, Android apps, privacy-focused tools, and other projects for small businesses and everyday users. I also write about technology, security, privacy, and what I'm learning along the way.

See more of what I'm building at:

https://bentreder.com/ben-builds/

Or visit:

https://bentreder.com/

Sources and further reading

The Colorado Sun, "After police used Flock cameras to accuse a Denver woman of theft, she had to prove her own innocence," October 28, 2025.

The Colorado Sun, "Colorado officer who used AI cameras to falsely accuse woman of theft disciplined with extra training," November 12, 2025.

The Washington Post, "How rogue officers turned a nationwide camera network into a tool for stalking," August 2, 2026.

The Washington Post, "Flock unveils changes after Post report on police misuse of camera network," August 13, 2026.

Flock Safety, "Flock Updates Privacy, Accountability, Security, and Transparency Safeguards," August 13, 2026.

Federal Trade Commission, Ring LLC enforcement action and consumer refund information.

Federal Communications Commission, 2022 equipment authorization rules involving covered communications and video surveillance equipment.

California Department of Justice, California Automated License Plate Reader Data Guidance.

Google Android, Android privacy settings, Privacy Dashboard, and app permission documentation.

Littleton Police Department, "Arrest Made Following Shots Fired," April 23, 2026.