GoKawiil
Tech News
A YouGov poll of 20,000 Americans shared with The Washington Post found 46% oppose license plate reader surveillance in their communities, versus 38% in favor, flipping last year's majority support. Flock, which operates over 120,000 such cameras nationwide, has faced backlash after reports of police misuse, prompting several communities to drop or reject contracts.
Across the US, people who disable or destroy Flock automatic license plate reader towers are being celebrated online rather than condemned, with social media posts backing vandals over police who install the surveillance cameras. In one case an Ohio grand jury declined to indict a man caught on video destroying a Flock camera, and public backlash has pushed some Wisconsin towns to drop their Flock contracts after a neighboring city ended its own.
The Austin suburb's city council voted unanimously on August 25 to terminate its agreement with Flock Safety, cutting off access to its automated license plate reader system. City staff had already begun covering the 28 cameras installed around town earlier that day, ending a relationship with the vendor that dated back to 2020.
Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based startup that sells AI-powered license-plate-reading cameras to police departments, cities, and businesses, has rapidly grown from a niche security vendor into a widely recognized name. That visibility has come largely through controversy, as the company's surveillance technology has drawn public scrutiny and criticism rather than praise.
Public records show that Alpharetta, a small Atlanta suburb with about 120 officers, has built a license-plate surveillance network through Flock Safety cameras that now exchanges data with over 2,000 outside organizations, including colleges, airports, fraud investigators and federal inspectors. In exchange, Alpharetta receives data from more than 1,300 other entities, some of which have already faced scandals over misuse of the same technology. The network has grown sharply in the past year, with outgoing data-sharing partners up 42 percent and incoming partners up 125 percent since June 2025.
A wave of polls and news reports indicates widespread American opposition to data centers, Flock surveillance cameras, and Meta's AI-equipped Ray-Ban glasses, which critics have nicknamed 'pervert glasses.' Recent events, including a grand jury declining to indict a man filmed damaging Flock equipment and protestors against data centers gaining online praise, underscore how deep and public this hostility has become.
Public records show former Alpharetta, Georgia patrolman Dustin Bozzo ran 56 unauthorized searches on a fellow officer's license plate—his ex, whom he had been secretly dating in violation of department policy—between March and May, then tracked a second officer's car 29 times after noticing it near hers. He was placed on leave in July and resigned in August as the department opened an internal probe that has since become a criminal investigation.
The home of Flock Safety's chief executive has had its image blurred out on Google Maps and its listing obscured on Zillow, apparently after users flagged the address in response to privacy concerns about the company's surveillance camera network. Commentators note that such blurring requests are free and available to any homeowner who wants their property hidden from these mapping services.
Across the United States, individuals are disabling, damaging, or stealing Flock Safety surveillance cameras used by local police departments, employing tactics ranging from spray-painting lenses to outright destruction. In Lumpkin County, Georgia, a sheriff's Facebook post offering a $1,000 reward for information about a vandalized camera backfired, drawing over 30,000 comments largely siding with the vandals rather than law enforcement.
The Albany Police Department in Georgia posted surveillance footage on Facebook asking the public to identify a man who picked up $30 he found on the floor of a Walmart without turning it in to employees. The post, shared August 18, drew thousands of mocking comments from people questioning why police were devoting resources to such a minor incident.
Meta has settled child-safety-related claims for $18 billion, according to a roundup of risk and compliance news. The same briefing notes Florida's governor voicing concern over Flock surveillance cameras and the FBI dismantling a large China-linked hacking network.
An Oviedo, Florida man, Evan Meyer, was charged with three felonies after cutting down and smashing what turned out to be a decoy Flock Safety camera. Police had installed the cheap 3D-printed replicas after real license-plate-reading cameras were stolen from a corridor between late July and early August, hoping to lure and catch vandals.