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ALPR cameras, like the ones owned by private companies such as Flock, Axon Fusus, Live View, or Vigilant, are cameras that scan your license plate and take a picture of your car and its surroundings, logging the date and time of your car’s location. An AI-agent then scans this picture, turning visuals into keywords (such as “blue Toyota” or “dent on passenger door” or “UCONN bumper sticker”) then uploading this information to a private database which can be access by police and federal agents without a warrant.

The information stored by these cameras in this private database, accessible to customers for a limited time, is used to train AI-models and has been shown as easy to access by unauthorized parties.

Find out more and search for camera locations near you: deflock.me

ALPR cameras are installed through private contracts between groups like police departments and the private company supplying the cameras, like Flock.

In Windsor, CT, this contract was signed without the knowledge or approval of the Town Council, limiting the public’s ability to discuss and conduct a vote on this surveillance system being brought into our communities.

Yes, we can win this fight! We know of 90 towns across the US that have already succeeded! People are coming out in massive numbers to push ALPR companies, like Flock, out of their communities by blocking contracts from being signed, cancelling current contracts, and turning off cameras to discuss how to move forward.

Cambridge, MA successfully cancelled license plate readers due to public concerns about privacy and outrage over Flock installing additional cameras after the city ordered all cameras to be taken down.

After hearing concerns from dozens of residents, Saranac Lake, NY leaders voted to terminate their contract with Flock.

Here in CT, Windsor Town Council voted 8-1 in February to turn off the cameras and reconsider the contract after dozens of residents came out to voice their concerns about privacy, violation of rights, community safety, and distrust in a private surveillance company.

In June 2025, a FOIA request was filed to learn more about how ALPR cameras in Windsor were being accessed. This FOIA found many searches from outside of CT, looking for women who traveled from Texas to access reproductive healthcare, people who came to CT for gender affirming care, immigrants, and activists attending peaceful protests such as No Kings.

In response to public outcry, the Windsor Town Council voted 8-1 in February to turn off the cameras and review the contract.

Following CT State legislature that set some guidelines for use of ALPR cameras and database access, Windsor Town Council Health and Safety Committee held a meeting to consider moving forward with a recommendation to turn the cameras back on.

However, despite an overwhelming, organized response from the public, touching on a variety of points as to why Flock is unwelcome in our community and dangerous for our families and neighbors, the Health and Safety committee, failed to discuss the concerns presented by the public, feebly threw a few little league questions to the Windsor Police Chief, then voted unanimously 3-0 to send a recommendation to turn the cameras back on and renew the contract. One Republican member of the committee helpfully recommended that the town policy be amended to bring the issue back to TC discussion should any updates or changes be made to the system, for example, adding audio sensors to the current cameras.

Now in Windsor, following the initiation of a signature campaign gathering around 300 signatures, the Town Council has voted in support of keeping the cameras off and allowing the Flock contract to expire. While this is a significant victory, the concern still remains that the town will look to another vendor to provide the same mass surveillance service. The SOS Campaign is building mass, public resistance to this continued effort to surveil our neighbors and communities.

Despite claims that they will solve major crimes, data in GA and OH shows this tech is used primarily for minor concerns like background checks for employment, loud music complaints and school residency checks.

FOIA requests made in CT and elsewhere have shown that police and federal agents use this database to conduct warrantless searches for immigrants, people seeking reproductive and gender-affirming healthcare, and attendees of peaceful protests such as “No Kings” rallies.

Since 2024, the Institute for Justice has identified at least 20 cases of officers allegedly abusing ALPR data to keep tabs on romantic interests, including current partners, exes, and strangers. One vendor, Flock, repeatedly viewed preschoolers, along with swimming and gymnastics lessons at a local community center.

Last year, Austin, TX turned off Flock cameras and allowed their contract to expire due to public concern over privacy violations. According to Sarah Hamid, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, “Austin had one of the best and most restrictive ALPR policies in the country, and the program still failed. The city’s own audit revealed systematic compliance failures.” She also pointed to the city’s own data, which showed a 0.2% success rate in terms of arrests per scan. A 0.2% success rate cannot be worth the lives that are being put at risk by continuing to build out this warrantless mass surveillance system.

One human workaround that undermines any technical safeguard claimed by Flock is the ability to manually enter case numbers. Reported on by Electronic Frontier Foundation, it was found that audit logs only track inputs, not contextual legitimacy. Case numbers can be reused for unauthorized searches. Someone could simply pick a random case and use that case number to complete unrelated or personal searches within the Flock database. Flock's proposed AI-driven audit alerts, something that may be able to flag suspicious activity after searches (and harm) have already occurred, relies on local agencies to self-monitor misuse. Read more here

Isolated, illegal actions (like disrupting cameras) not only play right into the company's hands, allowing them an easily defensible opportunity to upgrade devices and increase surveillance. More importantly, risky individual actions endanger the truly powerful, growing movement against surveillance.

One person's desperate decision to go mess with cameras puts every activist and organizer associated with this movement in danger. Do we really believe that repressive agencies will carefully investigate to confirm beyond a doubt who the masked suspect was? Or will they use the opportunity of an open case to go after a vulnerable person or someone representing a group winning victories in the struggle and build a false case around why their target encouraged, supported, or directly committed the crime?

Furthermore, impulsive, individual actions like this are hopeless in the struggle against corporate giants. Why break the overgrown toenail of a giant, when we could be working to bring ourselves together as a massive, collaborative group, capable of decisively moving the behemoth out of our communities?

Building a broad, powerful movement means building collaboration and trust that individuals will not endanger the group. Companies like flock, amazon, tesla, and apple, depend upon the labor and cooperation of millions. These millions together amount to a sleeping giant that can stop any initiative by these companies by doing nothing more than folding their arms. Succeeding in this is a matter or organization, consciousness and trust.

New updates to devices include audio sensors that are listening and recording at all times.

Additionally, ALPR companies now have access to an upgrade called SignalTrace. This upgrade equips devices to track all cell phones, AirPods, and smart watches. This technology “links devices that regularly travel together, correlating them to license plate.”

Flock claims cameras don’t track people yet the company’s own training videos show police using the system to track suspects “from location to location to location”. Additionally, some of its cameras are designed to follow people as they walk. According to Benn Jordan, a security researcher who found dozens of Flock cameras steaming openly online, “they quite literally use AI to zoom in and follow you around whether you’re a person of interest of not.” Read more here