US surveillance camera network expands - and so does resistance to it
AI-powered licence plate cameras made by Flock Safety are spreading rapidly across US communities, but growing privacy concerns have led to misuse cases and even acts of sabotage against the devices.
In late July, four surveillance cameras were cut down overnight in Houston's affluent Old Braeswood neighbourhood, their metal poles severed and the units left lying on the ground. Similar acts of vandalism have since been reported in Minnesota, California and Georgia. The targeted cameras belong to Flock Safety, a company founded in 2017 that has become one of the biggest makers of automatic licence plate readers in the United States.
Flock does not disclose exact figures but says it works with more than 7,000 communities and has deployed roughly 100,000 cameras nationwide. Documents obtained by the BBC show how extensive the network has become in Houston: the city's METRO transit authority owns only 35 cameras itself but can access around 20,000 devices across the wider Flock network, including some as far away as New York state. The scope of searches has grown sharply too - a typical licence-plate search covered about 270 camera networks in April 2024, but by April 2026 one in five searches spanned more than 6,000 networks.
Cases of misuse
Concerns have intensified following several reported abuses. A police officer in Kentucky was recently charged after using the Flock system more than 2,000 times to track an ex-girlfriend who had filed a protection order against him. In Texas, a detective searched over 80,000 images without a warrant while trying to locate a woman suspected of having had an abortion. Immigrant rights advocates also fear that data gathered by police could end up with federal immigration authorities, though Flock's leadership says immigration agencies do not have direct access to its database.
Law enforcement officials, meanwhile, defend the technology's value. The police chief of Memorial Villages, a small Houston-area jurisdiction, says recovered stolen vehicles rose from an average of three to 45 a year after adopting Flock, and that the tool has also helped locate missing and vulnerable people. Still, more than 200 communities - including Los Angeles, Seattle and Austin - have cancelled or declined to renew Flock contracts since 2021, citing cost and privacy concerns. Lawmakers from both major parties are now discussing tighter rules, including proposals to require warrants before federal agencies can access the data.
