Flock worker calls police on reporter filming camera installation
Atlanta investigative journalist was stopped by three police cars after documenting a Flock Safety technician's work on a public street.
Part of a larger narrative
Flock Camera Police Misconduct
- Five Indianapolis officers charged with misusing Flock cameras
- Senate panel holds hearing on Flock's AI surveillance network
- Flock worker calls police on reporter filming camera installationyou are here
What to know
- A Flock Safety technician called 911 on investigative reporter Brendan Keefe for filming a camera installation on a public street, resulting in police pulling him over with three units—highlighting concerns over the company's relationship with law enforcement.
- Flock operates 120,000+ license plate readers nationwide without opt-out policies or community consent; its growth has outpaced contract cancellations 10-to-1 despite civil rights opposition and increasing bans.
- The incident exposes a 'double standard': Flock records Americans' movements constantly, yet objected to being filmed in public; legal experts note such recording is constitutionally protected under the First Amendment.
- The company faces mounting pressure with numerous communities canceling contracts and lawmakers implementing ALPR bans, though Flock claims its expansion continues faster than contract losses.
The dispute Whether the problem lies in Flock's technology itself or primarily in how police use the data; the company argues abuses stem from police misuse, not collection, but critics contend the surveillance architecture is inherently problematic. · positions read across 55 posts and comments
Flock is an authoritarian mass surveillance tool that operates without consent and should be banned entirely.
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“Flock is nothing but a tool of authoritarianism.”
hrbrmstr@mastodon.social · Mastodon ↗
The incident demonstrates an egregious double standard and reveals preferential police treatment of a corporate surveillance vendor.
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“Flock Safety's close relationship with police departments across the country seems to have afforded the company protections beyond the scope of the Constitution.”
New Republic · New Republic ↗
“Why can't a person opt out? It's because if your car gets stolen, if something were to happen, moreover the government requires you to have a license plate.”
Josh Thomas, Chief communications officer, Flock Safety · New Republic ↗
Brendan Keefe Investigative reporter, Atlanta News FirstFlock Safety Automated license plate reader companyJosh Thomas Chief communications officer, Flock SafetyMilton Police Department Local law enforcement
How it unfolded 0 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump
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background
Civil liberties advocates point to First Amendment protections — The New Republic and ACLU statements noted that recording in public spaces is constitutionally protected, and questioned whether Flock's relationship with police departments afforded it protection beyond legal scope. The incident was characterized as a 'disturbing double standard' — Flock records millions of Americans but objects to being filmed itself.
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Atlanta News First publishes investigation of incident and Flock practices — The station released the police stop footage and 911 call, alongside reporting on Flock's broader deployment of 120,000 license plate readers, community contract cancellations, and civil rights concerns. Keefe questioned Flock's chief communications officer Josh Thomas about opt-out policies.
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Milton Police pull over Keefe with three units — After the 911 call, Milton, Georgia police stopped Keefe's vehicle with three police cars. During the stop, Keefe identified himself as a member of the press and explained he was documenting Flock camera installations. Police obtained both Keefe's dashboard camera and body camera footage from the encounter.
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Flock installer calls 911, reports being followed and harassed — The Flock technician immediately packed up equipment and drove away upon seeing Keefe filming. Keefe followed at a distance in his car, and the installer called police dispatch, claiming he was being followed and harassed by someone taking videos and pictures.
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Keefe attempts to film Flock camera installation on public street — After spotting a Flock Safety technician upgrading a license plate reader camera on a suburban street outside Atlanta near his home, investigative reporter Brendan Keefe parked on the public street, put on a safety vest and press placard, and began recording the installation.
What people are saying 24 voices from 4 sites · best of 55 · verbatim
- Why are citizens unable to opt out of Flock data collection, and what legal authority allows this?
- Is this the only documented case of Flock calling police on observers, or part of a pattern?
- Sep 15
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Naturally I don't know how the Flock search platform operates but this implies to me that this "Reason:" field is a mere formality, after-the-fact accountability (if even that!).If the search was granted based on human checks for the reason given, they would not dare be flippant about this. Of course it would take more time, humans don't scale…
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Cops Searched Thousands of Flock Cameras for Reasons of 'LMAO,' 'IDK,' 'Hehe,' And 'Asdfg' - Slashdot https:// yro.slashdot.org/story/26/09/1 5/0032227/cops-searched-thousands-of-flock-cameras-for-reasons-of-lmao-idk-hehe-and-asdfg?utm_source=rss1.0mainlinkanon&utm_medium=feed
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"In July 2025, an officer with the Lake County, Indiana, Sheriff's Department used Flock Safety's surveillance system to search for a licence plate across more than 19,000 cameras covering 1,558 cities and towns. According to a record of the search, the reason entered was 'LMAO'." https://www. techtimes.co.uk/police-flock-s…
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> Data reviewed by the EFF included searches labelled 'LMAO', 'LOL', 'Hehe', 'Haha', 'idk' and 'blah'. Other entries included 'asdfg' and strings of apparently random keyboard characters. In one case, an officer entered: 'robbery I don't remember the case number leave me alone'.lol wtf. Like, I get it, "haha quirky me", if it was a personal coding…
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From their own website "Flock’s AI-powered video analytics automatically capture critical evidence and alert teams to suspicious activity, even when no camera operator is present" Sir, gonna need you to head to their site.
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A ALPR track vehicles, we don't have the tech for them to be tracking license plates and people walking on the sidewalk. They answer the question "when has this plate been on this section of the road". You can extract that information and further run analytics on it, but that isn't anything unique to Flock. You can essentially do it yourself right…
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Instead of listening to your points I'm going to hear "defund the police" and think we have had multiple chances to re-brand this to avoid exactly this problem too many folks enjoy sticking to their original message, enjoy how aggressive it is, and don't understand that they need support from outside their bubble to gain any traction for change.
- Sep 14
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We’re going to have to get some meaningful legislation around them Not with Republicans in charge.
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Tell them about the internal video the Ottawa Chief of police put out this year then. Members are using our databases as their own way to meet women. Seeing a woman at a coffee shop, coming out of a gym, driving next to them, getting their license plates, and running them on the system,” he said. “We’ve seen members messaging vulnerable victims on…
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“Last summer, a cop with the Lake County, Indiana Sheriff’s Department used Flock’s surveillance search engine to look for a license plate across more than 19,000 cameras in 1,558 cities and towns. The cop’s stated reason for the search, according to a record of Flock’s system, was ‘LMAO.’” https://www. 404media.co/cops-search-thousa…
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preemptively: yes I fucking know they don't care this is for my autism. this is such a trivial fucking win for flock to integrate with Jira or similar (because why wouldn't cops use jira? they're constantly writing tickets) so that the valid provenance must be present for the footage to be released; that way you can use Jira's stats and other…
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A Flock technician called 911 because journalists were filming the installation of Flock cameras in public. Here's what the photographer said to the police: "There is an irony here that they're setting up these cameras that track all of our movements, that follow everywhere we go. But when I try to get video in public of him in public setting up a…
- Sep 13
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banks, coffee store workers, hairdressers, most especially restaurant managers.Those people are all working in private premises, and have the right to eject customers for being belligerent or just annoying. The Flock technicians are in public, and as we're always reminded by Flock advocates, have no expectation of privacy. There's no indication…
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I think the long term solution to the privacy problem is going to be to switch to a vehicle marking system which can only be usefully used by law enforcement. Example, if instead of license plates you had a transponder that sends out encrypted metadata about the vehicle in a way that only law enforcement could decrypt it. Obviously there are still…
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Flock worker calls police on reporter filming public camera install “I don’t understand why a reporter wants to spy on me! All I’m doing is installing spy cameras!” https://www. investigatetv.com/2026/09/08/f lock-worker-calls-police-investigatetv-reporter-filming-public-camera-installation/
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> It's worse for the technician in this case, because he really was being followed --- that's not unlawful but it's unnerving.The technician was in public, bearing a company logo, performing an activity in which there is widespread public interest, and identified himself to law enforcement as an agent of Flock Safety. He is entitled to be unnerved…
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If someone were following around and filming someone who was posting anti-Flock fliers, I would also feel that crosses into harassment after a certain amount of time.A TV news crew filmed me when I was a freshman setting up my old travel trailer in a new university trailer park. I hated it, but it didn't last long. If they had continued following…
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If someone came up to me and started filming me while I was in public, and then when I got in my car they followed me, I would also call the police.The double standard demonstrated by Flock isn't the issue, they are the pieces of shit and of course they have no moral consistency.But "He who fights with monsters should be careful, lest he thereby…
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Random people calling 911 on other people filming them is a staple of Youtube; banks, coffee store workers, hairdressers, most especially restaurant managers. I don't know why anyone would expect technicians from Flock to be different. It's worse for the technician in this case, because he really was being followed --- that's not unlawful but it's…
- Sep 10
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Maybe we should give them something to look at… Cops Are Using Flock to Spy on People for the Crime of Standing Around https:// theintercept.com/2026/09/09/fl ock-cameras-police-loitering-curfew-surveillance/ # ACAB # Flock # Surveillance # AI # Privacy # Tech
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To be fair you can ride a bike and walk in the street. There's no law against that unless you're talking about a highway which makes sense because the cars are going between 65 and 90 miles an hour on any given day. They're walking outside of a crosswalk makes sense too because well you shouldn't be running across traffic and getting hit by a car…
- Sep 9
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can the reporterss call the police on flock worker wasting police time of something ?
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The Intercept: Cops Are Using Flock to Spy on People for the Crime of Standing Around https:// theintercept.com/2026/09/09/fl ock-cameras-police-loitering-curfew-surveillance/ @ theintercept # surveillance # Flock
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Police scanned Flock cameras in a single town in Illinois more than 1,200 times to investigate cases of loitering.