This data shouldn't even be collected in the first place, let alone consolidated into a national network that any police officer can decide to spy on me through.
Now you have turn by turn navigation around ALPRs on your phone.
Edit: link https://github.com/pickpj/Big-B-Router - I tend to find ALPRs that are missing in the OSM data, so keep on updating OSM data.
fixed that for you. :-/
That's an interesting idea...
Presumably that software can then be used to upsell additional cameras because with an increased density your capabilities start to approximate real-time live position tracking instead of just getting approximate locations of hot plates.
It can be. FLOCK data was used to put Bryan Kohberger at the scene along with other people's security camera's. Cops regularly use FLOCK camera's to get hits for criminals that have warrants for violent crime.
I can see why people are ok with them when they're used to get criminals off the streets. However, I've seen multiple times where cops initiate a felony stop (where people are pulled out at gunpoint and detained) against a car they got a hit on - only to find out the person they really wanted wasn't driving or even in the car at all.
What's interesting is businesses and houses have so many cameras nowadays that the first thing cops do when they get to the scene of a violent crime is canvas the area for camera's. So yeah, you can avoid FLOCK, but there are most likely hundreds of other camera's that will capture you driving through any given area.
If you look at the map, there are zero flock cameras reported in that region.
None in Moscow Idaho where the murder happened, none in Pullman where he lived, and none showed between the locations.
At what point do we accept that all systems are flawed? There could be many variables as to why the perp wasn't in the car. Maybe the perp stole the car. Maybe the perp borrowed the car. Maybe these systems do not work well in fog etc etc. I don't know how we're supposed to advance technology that makes us safer without getting into these muky situations from time to time.
The difference is these typically don't zap that data up to a central database that any agency in the country can access, the way Flock does if only because the security people at Flock are a joke.
I drove out to investigate, ended up adding two more to the site.
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/wa-cit...
Their stated reason is: "Along with the cameras being used to reduce crime, the sheriff’s office said they may also be used for public safety concerns, including AMBER Alerts and Silver Alerts."
The cameras are good when we're all on the happy path, but as soon as a bad actor gets involved, all of that surveillance won't look so great. History shows that the odds of that happening are decidedly non-zero.
EDIT: Searching for some info on the grant referenced in the article, it appears that a county must match 20% of the grant amount; one example is [1]. I'm sure this looks like a great deal to county officials.
[0] https://www.ketk.com/news/crime-public-safety/new-traffic-ca...
I think reducing crime and road safety is an excuse.
There are true innovators in the traffic camera space but i think counties often choose vendors who give them best ROI.
Whether or not that is true, I suspect it is, the best way to avoid fines for breaking traffic regulations is to not break traffic regulations. They can't make anything from you that way if you do.
Hot take: AMBER alert is a way to keep the public paranoid about child abduction by strangers, an evil but extremely rare act, and turn their paranoia into support for law enforcement. It may not be the intended purposes, but the (real) purpose of a system is what it does.
It is no surprise that Flock, like other parties pushing for the erosion of privacy and personal freedom, are following the same playbook. Don't you want your kid (or your doggo) to get home safe? If you don't let us spy on you your literally supporting child abductors. Checkmate libertarians.
The reality of AMBER alert is they overwhelmingly come from custody dispute cases where the child's safety is not in jeopardy, because they tend to be the only kind of cases where they know enough about the "abductor" to issue an alert that is not just "look for a man driving a white van." The reality of child abuse is you should be infinitely more worried about authority figures dealing with the child — parents, relatives, teachers, pastors, coaches and yes, the police — than strangers driving unmarked white vans.
I agree with the rest of what you wrote but the quote is an overly cynical tired cliche when applied in a blanket manner. There are specific situations involving bad faith actors where it is directly relevant, and there are also times where it can be a useful observation about the impact of perverse incentives that build on top of unintended consequences.
But the way you're using it there it's no better than other politically charged nonsensical slogans.
I thought they were mostly custody style kidnappings anyway.
What is the guy stealing tbe screw was to walk or bike ?
I have two cameras in my small town, but I can avoid them, so I now go out of my way to cross town.
I would encourage anti-Flockers and anti-authority individuals out here to question their motives and make sure that their voices and actions are best aligned with protecting vulnerable individuals (this also includes trafficked illegal immigrants).
Seems like many folks here might be more concerned with preventing hypothetical/theoretical harm, instead of REAL harm (violent crime, trafficking, vehicle theft)
And even if you ignore the historical parallels, there are already cases of: officers using Flock systems to stalk dating partners[2][3], immigration enforcement using Flock data to track targets[4], and ICE/CBP bypassing the systems in place that let local jurisdictions choose not to share with federal agencies[5].
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Goals_Foundation
[2]: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2026/01/12/menasha...
[3]: https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2026/02/24/mpd-off...
[4]: https://www.404media.co/ice-taps-into-nationwide-ai-enabled-...
[5]: https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2025/10/21/leaving-t...
I'm glad you acknowledge this, because it highlights what has irritated me about the discussion of crime in the last ~6 years. People seem to expect that crime can be prevented. Our criminal justice system and system of civil rights can only intervene after the crime has occurred, which means it won't prevent anything. Maybe I've misread you personally, and I don't mean to put it all on you, but I think people with your position tend to vastly overstate the deterrent factor of proposed interventions.
Further, only reacting to crime and not seeking to "punish" people before a crime has occurred is exactly how our system should work. When reasoning about crime prevention, a large number of people seem to want police to intervene preemptively. Or they want to punish offenders out of proportion to actual crimes, to prevent recidivism that hasn't happened yet. This type of thinking seems to slide pretty quickly into the "pre-crime" concept of dystopian scifi. We called that stuff dystopian for a reason.
In my opinion what we should do instead to prevent crime is to promote social cohesion, in the form of preventing income and wealth disparity, funding a strong social safety net, help for drug addicts and the mentally ill, etc. People who live happier, more stable lives will have less reason to turn to crime.
(I will also note, crime is lower everywhere in America vs. a few decades ago. Violent crime peaked in the mid 1990s. So it is in some sense a misguided endeavor completely, focusing on problems that are relatively unlikely.)
1. I don't think crime can really be prevented per se, but location-based crime can be discouraged and deterred. Having cameras in public, highly visible places, might make violent criminals (especially professional ones) think twice before committing crimes in these places. This potentially creates safe routes for vulnerable individuals (women, children) where they are less likely to be a victim of crime when following these routes. Privacy-minded individuals willing to take additional risk might opt out by driving a different route.
2. I agree on social cohesion, but this seems impossible in USA, which is a country that is/was a melting pot of immigrants from every place in the world. Embracing a national identity seems like the natural solution for creating social cohesion, but nationalism seems unpopular with half of the country (USA invasions don't help the cause). What is your proposed solution?
3.I will also note, crime is lower everywhere in America vs. a few decades ago. Violent crime peaked in the mid 1990s. This is a macro high level generalization; generally true but not everywhere. I am currently located in the midwest and anecdotally saw crime increase in a small city from 2018-2023 (people I know affected were victims of crime,visible increase in homelessness and drifters). Admittedly, crime levels in 2024-2025 in my region seem to be shrinking, but it's too early to determine probable cause. Gemini AI had this to say about crime levels, agreeing with your opinion but with caveats: When looking at the broad stretch from the 1990s peak to 2025, the national story is one of a massive, sustained decline. In 1991, the violent crime rate was roughly 758 per 100,000 people; by 2025, that figure is estimated to have dropped by nearly 60%, reaching its lowest levels in nearly 50 years. However, the "map of violence" has shifted. While the 1990s were defined by high-intensity violence in massive coastal hubs (NYC, LA), the 2020–2025 era has seen crime "decentralize" into the South, the Midwest, and even rural New England.
Source: https://usafacts.org/articles/how-does-crime-compare-by-city...
https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/ice-deaths-s... | https://atlpresscollective.com/2025/11/13/atlanta-police-flo... | https://immpolicytracking.org/policies/reported-ice-accessin... | https://jsis.washington.edu/humanrights/2025/10/21/leaving-t... | https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/how-cops-are-using-flo...
They're putting people in pens and then murdering them, and using Flock cameras to round them up.
I don't want this either. Might this be better attributed to politics/administration/policies? So maybe you're opposed to technologies that assist the governement with tracking people? If Flock starts solving missing abducted trafficked persons cases, would this sway your opinion? Or if the data is highly restricted?
I think it's also disingenuous (or at best, completely naive) to pretend like harm from Flock and other surveillance is hypothetical/theoretical. Here are just 2 recent examples of REAL harm:
https://www.postcrescent.com/story/news/crime/2026/01/12/men...
https://kenoshacountyeye.com/2025/12/12/deputy-on-leave-accu...
You can guarantee that there are many more that haven't been caught.
I don't deny that Flock systems could and may have been used in that manner, but that doesn't seem to be its main purpose or use. Presently I'm seeing Flock as a net win for most law abiding persons, and I believe that its use should and can be highly restricted and monitored as a tool to make the country safer. No reason to throw the baby out with the bath water
> left-leaning, anti-police
As if there is any correlation, or crimes don't occur in right-leaning locales.
> hypothetical/theoretical harm
Freedom is very real, and includes security from the state. The latter risks are hardly theoretical in history and very present today.
Firearm Prevalence: U.S. officers operate in a society with high civilian gun ownership. A 2019 study published in PMC found that the strongest predictor of police being killed on the job—and consequently, their higher rate of using lethal force—is the level of household gun ownership in that state. In this context, U.S. "caution" often manifests as "command presence" to prevent a suspect from reaching for a weapon.
Source:
https://www.heinz.cmu.edu/media/2020/February/gun-ownership-...
This map is missing info for my area. It's hard to not be in that network
More generally, if you're a webdev with a high end workstation it's really important to occasionally spin up a single core VM with less than 4 GB RAM, open a youtube video, and then check how well your page works in a second simultaneously visible window.
I get it may have its application in theft recovery, but it also happens to have some strong potential for ICE raids for day laborers. I don't think it has much application to theft prevention as I doubt many people even know they are there.
https://app.copdb.org is a similar project for mapping police & the violence they commit. Mostly in Utah but recently opened up to include ICE agents, which is talked about on their blog: https://copdb.org/articles/mapping-the-tentacles-of-state-vi...
And, where I am, you're more likely to have a gun if you're poor, because there's more exposure to crime, resulting in a much more realistic understanding that the police won't save you in an emergency.
https://oaklandcounty115.com/2026/03/03/clarkston-man-accuse...
They might also be competent at securing access to the data, removing an obvious objection to continued relationships with Flock.
Since covid, driver recklessness has been out of control. Running reds, extreme speed, escaping police are all common. Pedestrian and cyclist injuries and deaths remain extreme. At the same time, the public demands more oversight and constraints on police , which reduces their ability to enforce the law.
Imagine you are a policy maker, with worse driver behavior, and police force that are less able to enforce the law. What tools would you use to maintain law and order?
If you don't want surveillance, you will have to make some other tradeoffs to allow human beings to better monitor the public and enforce the law. They are not omnipotent and omniscient creatures.
How do these cameras prevent those crimes?
Don't make excuses for them. If you're legally allowed to kill people on purpose, you (should) get oversight and tight constraints. We don't because of a lot of reasons, but we should
They get paid six figure salaries for not actually doing a whole lot, they can manage.
Doesn't all the surveillance concern go away if we just remove license plates from cars? Our plates identify us nearly perfectly.
But of course, most people aren't in favor of that. They realize that cars are dangerous and behavior like speeding and running red lights needs to be claimed down on. When people are victims of crimes they like it when the police are able to track down the perpetrators - and traffic cameras are good at facilitating that. Outside of the HN bubble there's at lot less reflexive rejection of cameras.
It actually annoys me that people focus purely on the ALPRs when the other cameras are arguably much worse.
Caveat: it does not seem to update camera statuses after initial reporting. I see several cameras that were removed long ago, or have been repositioned, but their old statuses remain.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/washington-court-rules...
Are there any coordinated efforts for widespread scrubbing or removal of these parasitic devices?
Three separate posts on Craigslist in the Community section about Flock Cameras, trying to increase local awareness. Posted to two different cities, various posting iterations (e.g. with links / without, pics / no pics, etc.). All appeared to post fine when entered, but never saw the light of day and were marked as removed within a few minutes.
Any other subject: posts fine.
Try it yourself and see what you get.
But I'd like cameras in my neighborhood. Sure, there's a security risk but there's also a risk of not catching criminals due to lack of evidence. Tons of crimes aren't prosecuted due to the lack of evidence.
A security risk doesn't impact average people, and it can be handled more easily.
Notably, they are not used for speed detection or 'good driving' detection.
You might think that having a constantly-present, objective, impartial camera enforcing a law is better than a sometimes-present, subjective, often not impartial beat cop doing that. But that's not what Flock does. Flock just turns that 'sometimes-present' beat cop into an 'always-present' beat cop, without addressing any of the other beat cop problems.
If you believe the costs of the the abuses, and potential abuses, exceed the benefit, then at least be honest about the trade-off, because there are real benefits.
Personally, I believe the costs, on net, are worth the benefits. And in so far as the costs can be further reduced, without loosing most benefits, then great. This is not right or wrong. It's just a question of values, and how you weight the costs vs benefits.
Don't down-vote this all at once.
To be clear, even if we all agreed on the data, I still would not expect everyone to take the same position. There are subjective differences in values.
