A decorative Flock Safety camera appears in the top-right of the banner, as if watching Crossville landmarks below.
Vendor dossier
Who is Flock, and why switching to Axon is not a real fix
What the product actually does: a vendor-owned subscription cloud rather than cameras the city buys, FreeForm AI search, Multi-Geo and Convoy travel/association tools, patent claims versus marketing, recycled press talking points and council-coaching scripts, open Condor (people-tracking video camera) livestreams, cybersecurity findings, and why swapping to Axon is not a privacy fix.
Flock Safety is a private, venture-backed company that sells a subscription surveillance service to police, cities, businesses, and HOAs, not a one-time camera purchase. Typical Flock contracts keep ownership of the hardware with Flock; the city pays recurring fees for installed cameras plus cloud search, alerts, and network access. Inquest (Sept. 10, 2026) put the company’s present scale at more than 120,000 AI plate-reader cameras, contracts with about 40% of U.S. law-enforcement agencies, and a private valuation of about $7.5 billion, and noted Flock’s public claim that it can “eliminate almost all crime” within a decade. Public debate is not “anti-law enforcement”, it is residents asking how a private vendor’s database is governed, audited, shared, retained, and paid for with tax dollars.
How the product actually works
Cameras capture an image of every passing vehicle plus time and location metadata. Data uploads to a private cloud dashboard. Agencies subscribe for search, alert, and analytics tools. A public
Flock services agreement
states that the Hardware remains Flock’s personal property, the agency must help Flock keep title, and Flock will remove the devices when the subscription ends. The company makes money from storing, searching, and sharing the data, not from selling the city a camera it owns.
Beyond plate lookups, Flock markets FreeForm (natural-language AI search across LPR and video) and tools like Multi-Geo and Convoy Search that track cross-city travel and vehicles that move together. That is a searchable database of how people and cars look and where they go, not a simple fixed camera.
Plain-language definition when people say “Flock sells your data”: Flock sells access to a platform built from public-space captures, plus optional analytics. Even if the vendor frames outputs as “not personal data,” it is still a paid movement database paid for by taxpayers.
Scans of ordinary drivers can enter the same shared vendor network used elsewhere in Tennessee, including departments with documented personal-use misuse (Oak Ridge).
Flock's template contract grants the company a "perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free" license to use agency data as "Aggregated Data" for marketing, product development, and "crime prevention efforts." Even if a department clicks "don't share" in Flock's settings, the contract language may override that choice for "investigative purposes." The ACLU found this clause in contracts across 80+ Massachusetts departments; Boston PD is the only major department known to have negotiated it out. Public contracts from El Cerrito, CA and Pascagoula, MS contain the same language. Crossville should publish its live agreement so residents can read the local terms. See also: Why this matters: the fine print.
Independent reporting has also documented Flock using overseas gig workers to annotate U.S. camera imagery for AI training, see overseas AI annotation.
The city does not buy the cameras. It rents a vendor cloud.
Crossville is not purchasing pole cameras it will own. Typical Flock contracts keep the hardware as Flock’s property. The city pays a subscription for installed devices plus cloud search, alerts, and network access. Flock’s own
FAQ
includes questions titled “Why can’t I buy Flock Safety cameras?” and “What happens after my subscription ends?” The public
Whitestown, IN Flock services agreement
states, in the security-interest clause: “The Hardware shall remain the personal property of Flock and will be removed upon the termination or expiration of this Agreement.” Agency there also agrees to acts needed “to assure the retention of title of the Hardware by Flock.” Crossville has not published its live agreement, so residents should not assume every clause matches Whitestown.
Those leased devices are one node in a software platform. Flock’s
Product Hub
lists FlockOS, FreeForm, a national LPR network, video cameras, gunshot and sound detection, and drones on one catalog page, not a stand-alone camera:
Search and alerts in a vendor dashboard. The same FAQ lists footage search, Hot List alerts, and a Safe List.
Flock’s Safe List explainer
says registered neighborhood plates can be marked as resident vehicles and filtered out of a search.
Software on other cameras. Flock’s FAQ includes “Can I use Flock Safety software on my traditional IP cameras?” and “What does the video integration add to traditional IP cameras?” Those are Flock’s own question titles. Crossville has not published whether any such integration is enabled locally.
APIs that move data automatically. Flock’s
Developer Hub
describes “Flock Apps” that query vehicle detections, subscribe to real-time events, register outside sensors as devices, and run vehicle images from other cameras through Flock’s AI (Vehicle Detection API). That same overview says endpoints like vehicle-detection search require a reason so customers can audit who accessed the data and why. Flock’s
API and Integrations Terms
say access must be authorized and directed by a Flock customer. Flock’s
REST API overview
lists plate lookup, custom hotlists, device locations, FlockOS CAD / alerts / geolocation, and inbound vehicle images. Flock has also said it offers
core APIs at no extra cost to law-enforcement agencies
and publishes a
partners and integrations
catalog. An API is a way for one computer system to talk to another without an officer clicking through a webpage.
Drones on the same stack. Flock’s
Drone as First Responder (DFR)
page says docked drones can launch to the coordinates of 911 calls, LPR hits, or gunshot detection, stream live video to officers and dispatch, and “seamlessly integrates with the Flock ecosystem.” Flock Alpha is marketed on that same page. In August 2026 Langley told
Business Insider
drones are now Flock’s fastest-growing line, with more than 200 DFR customers, while ALPRs are under half of forward-looking revenue. See CEO / All-In.
That is Flock’s product catalog, not a list of what Crossville has turned on. Crossville has published Falcon units on
Quote Q-00234.
It has not published whether APIs, IP-camera ingest, Safe List, drones, or other add-ons are in the live contract.
MaryvillePrivacy.org
collected the same class of public Flock product pages for East Tennessee readers.
Questions for City Council: Publish the live agreement and every add-on. Which search tools, sharing settings, APIs, and drone or video products are enabled? Who can authorize an outside system to pull Crossville detections? What happens to the poles and the data if the subscription ends?
Inquest
(Brendan McQuade and Ed Vogel, Sept. 10, 2026) argued that after 9/11, DHS grants and fusion-center funding did not just buy cameras for big cities. They created a permanent market where small departments can rent mass data collection and multi-agency search from private vendors. The essay calls that model “platform policing”: public agencies pay corporations for continuous access to automated surveillance hosted on corporate servers. Fusion centers, it says, are one institutional bridge between that federal money and the private tools agencies buy with it.
On Flock specifically, Inquest cites more than 120,000 cameras, contracts with about 40% of U.S. law-enforcement agencies, a private valuation of about $7.5 billion, and the company’s claim it can “eliminate almost all crime” within a decade. It also recounts the Axon–Flock partnership collapse: Axon cutting Flock’s access to Fleet 3 footage and launching competing fixed readers (Outpost / Lightpole) plus the Fusus real-time ops stack. That is the same company-swap risk on this site: canceling Flock does not end plate scanning if Axon (or another vendor) replaces it. See Axon–Flock history and Not just Flock.
Treat Inquest’s dollar and valuation figures as that essay’s reporting. Crossville still has not published which Flock search tools, sharing settings, or add-ons are enabled here.
Vendor transparency · Aug. 21, 2026 · Gadget Review
Flock blocked the Wayback Machine from saving its own site
Gadget Review
reported August 21, 2026 that Flock’s entire domain is excluded from the
Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Trying to open flocksafety.com through Wayback returns “This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine,” covering the host and its subdomains. Gadget Review says an Internet Archive forum reply attributes that exclusion to a request from the site owners. Blocking a public archive of your own marketing and legal pages is legal. It is not a neutral transparency choice for a company that sells permanent, searchable records of where cars have been.
Gadget Review argues the exclusion makes it harder for cities and residents to independently check when Flock’s public promises change. It lists examples that are now harder to verify on Wayback alone, including shifts in contract language about customer data, post-contract use of footage, liability limits, marketing claims, and retention defaults. Treat those as Gadget Review’s reporting about what is harder to audit, not as this site’s own contract review of Crossville’s agreement.
The same piece contrasts Flock with other surveillance vendors that still have searchable Wayback histories, and recommends treating Wayback archivability of vendor legal terms as a municipal procurement check. Crossville should publish its live Flock agreement and keep dated copies of every vendor page and amendment the city relies on.
Contract fine print · ACLU investigation · Oct. 2025
The "perpetual, worldwide" data license hidden in Flock contracts
Flock's PR line is "we don't sell customer data." The contract says they don't need to — they already have a perpetual license to it.
The ACLU and ACLU of Massachusetts found that Flock's template user agreement — signed by police departments across the country — contains this clause:
The customer "hereby grants Flock" a "non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, royalty-free right and license" to "disclose the Agency Data… for investigative purposes."
What this means: Even if a department clicks "don't share my data" in Flock's system settings, this contract language may override that choice. The ACLU found this clause in contracts across 80+ Massachusetts police departments. Boston PD is the only major department known to have negotiated the clause out of their agreement.
Raw data vs. "Aggregated Data"
Raw plate data and footage: Contractually limited to law enforcement "for investigative purposes only."
"Aggregated Data": Flock keeps a perpetual, irrevocable license to use it for "crime prevention efforts, other Flock offerings, and marketing."
The catch: Flock defines what "aggregated" means. Their contract says it's data where personal information has been "permanently anonymized by commercially available standards" — but Flock decides when that standard is met.
The network is already public-private
Flock contracts explicitly list "schools, neighborhood homeowners associations, businesses, and individual users" as "Non-Agency End Users" who can share footage into the same cloud that police search. Private companies are already feeding data into the system — the question isn't whether Flock will sell your data, it's that the database police query already includes private cameras from retailers, HOAs, and security firms across the network.
Questions for City Council: Does Crossville's contract contain the "worldwide, perpetual" license clause? Has the city negotiated it out like Boston did? What data from Crossville cameras can Flock use for "marketing" or "other Flock offerings"? Publish the live agreement.
In December 2025, 404 Media reported that Flock used Upwork gig workers, including workers in the Philippines, to review and classify vehicle and people imagery from U.S. cameras to train machine-learning models. Exposed training materials showed annotation tasks for plates, vehicle attributes, and related footage; after 404 Media sought comment, the exposed panel disappeared per contemporaneous coverage.
That is a vendor-trust and data-handling issue for any city on the network: Crossville should publish where local imagery may be processed, under what contracts, and whether council approved overseas human review. Also covered in:
DeFlock Birmingham: The Facts
·
The Verge.
FreeForm: type a description and search across camera footage
Flock FreeForm™ is the company’s AI natural-language search product. Instead of only typing a plate, an officer can type a description and pull visual matches from LPR and video, across the agency’s cameras and, where sharing is enabled, partner networks. Crossville residents should treat “just license plate cameras” as incomplete marketing until the city publishes whether FreeForm / people-search / video-search features are enabled on the local contract, ask using our questions for City Council.
Vehicles without a plate: plain-language prompts such as “blue SUV with a racing stripe” or “white F-150 with a ladder in the back.”
People by appearance: Flock’s own marketing example is “man in blue shirt and cowboy hat.” A company spokesperson has confirmed FreeForm can search by clothing descriptions.
Cross-agency reach + alerts: search shared cameras where authorized; get notified when a match reappears, without watching every feed.
Flock’s framing: they say FreeForm is not facial recognition, clothing / accessories / vehicle attributes only. Critics note appearance-based search still enables warrantless tracking of people and cars by look across a networked map. Flock’s own U.S. patent filing also describes broader people-classification features; see patent vs marketing.
“Just type what you’re looking for, like ‘man in blue shirt and cowboy hat,’ and get visual matches instantly.”
3B Media, citing a Crossville PD report of an alleged July 17 Rural King air-conditioner theft, published the following wording. This site cannot confirm that search was FreeForm: the article does not name the product, and this site has not seen a Flock query log. Crossville has not published which search tools are enabled. The quoted “filtering” by toolbox, tint, and a TRD decal is look-based vehicle search, the same capability class Flock sells as FreeForm and Vehicle Fingerprint. The case was reported as a pending theft warrant, not a conviction.
“Officer [name omitted] utilized the department’s FLOCK camera system to track the fleeing vehicle. By filtering for the truck’s specific features—including a silver tool box, tinted windows, mud splatter, and a TRD off-road decal—the system located the Tacoma at a nearby intersection minutes after the theft.”
Questions for City Council: Is FreeForm (or any natural-language / people-description search) enabled? On which camera types? Who can run those searches? Are clothing/appearance queries logged and audited? Has council approved people-search capabilities separately from basic LPR?
Multi-Geo & Convoy Search: travel history and who you drive with
Plate reads alone are only the first layer. Flock also sells search tools that turn those hits into cross-city travel queries and maps of which vehicles travel together. East Tennessee public-records releases, summarized by
Maryville Residents for Privacy show Multi-Geo and Convoy Search in regional training materials, including Knox County / East Tennessee task-force context. Crossville has not published whether those features are enabled locally, who can run them, or what written limits apply.
Multi-Geo Search
Lets an officer pick two or more cities and find vehicles that appear in all of them inside a chosen time window.
Turns scattered camera hits into a single cross-jurisdiction travel query on the shared Flock network.
Training examples reference vehicles scanned in both Detroit and Knoxville and flagged for follow-up.
Once a plate is in the cloud, appearances anywhere on the networked map can be queried, including for drivers never accused of a crime in Crossville.
Convoy Search
Looks for vehicles that repeatedly show up near each other at ALPR cameras.
Flags cars as “associated,” so investigators can map who a vehicle tends to travel with.
Case examples describe identifying a second “convoy” vehicle and tracking plate changes over time.
Runs on correlation alone, no observed criminal act, no warrant, and no notice to the people being linked.
Tennessee training example: probable cause from travel historyA case summary in the East Tennessee training materials describes officers reviewing Flock ALPR history showing a vehicle repeatedly scanned in both Detroit and Knoxville, then stating they “got PC”, probable cause, based on that travel pattern and moving to make a stop. The documented “crime” in that writeup was the route, not an observed criminal act. That is tracking someone’s daily routes treated as reason enough to stop them, with serious
Fourth Amendment implications for every driver whose plate feeds the same network.
Why Crossville drivers should care:
Crossville’s cameras feed the same shared vendor network these tools search when sharing is enabled. Drive to Knoxville, Nashville, or across state lines and the round-trip pattern can become queryable. Documented example: Wisconsin deputies used Flock hits of frequent travel into legal-cannabis Michigan as probable-cause fodder for a weed search (Brown County case).
Convoy Search is not only “where you went”, it can sweep in carpools, families, coworkers, and church traffic into a map of who travels with whom, with no link to any crime.
As of July 2026, this site has not found a Crossville-published written policy covering Multi-Geo, Convoy, retention for those searches, warrant standards, or public transparency reporting on how often they run.
Residents are not notified when their travel pattern or associations are searched or used as an investigative signal.
The
ACLU (July 2025)
separately describes Flock Investigations Manager / Multi-State Insights / convoy and multi-location tools marketed to “detect patterns of suspicious activity”, moving from looking up a known plate toward generating suspicion from movement itself. A Norfolk Circuit Court ruling in 2024 treated dense Flock ALPR location collection as a Fourth Amendment search requiring a warrant before use as evidence, the kind of travel-history analysis Multi-Geo and Convoy are built to perform. See also
Fourth Amendment
and
Schmidt v. Norfolk.
Questions for City Council: Does Crossville PD (or any partner with access to local reads) have Multi-Geo and/or Convoy Search? Who can run those queries, with what supervisor approval, and are they logged? Is there a written warrant or individualized-suspicion standard before travel-history or association searches? Will the city publish summary counts of Multi-Geo / Convoy use? Ask under
questions for City Council
and request the answers via
TPRA.
OS Investigate: AI that can identify people and track movement
WIRED reported August 19, 2026 that Flock built OS Investigate (formerly Nightshift), an AI tool for police that can identify drivers and track vehicles by movement patterns. Flock has told the public for years that its technology “cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals.” Reporters reconstructed the interface from code on Flock login portals. Flock called it a separate product from the plate readers and said features may change before a wider release. Crossville has not published whether any Flock AI investigation tool is enabled locally.
Traffic tickets: the “not for moving violations” line is gone
Crossville was sold Flock as extra eyes for investigations, not as a ticket camera. In June 2022 Chief Jessie Brooks told local media the cameras were not red-light ticket devices. Flock’s own materials used to say the cameras “are not used to enforce traffic violations such as speeding, running red lights, or other moving violations.”
Streetsblog USA
reported that language disappeared after December 2, 2025.
Gadget Review
summarized that shift on August 21, 2026.
The first documented ticket came weeks later.
404 Media
obtained a December 26, 2025 Georgia State Patrol citation whose notes said “CAPTURED ON FLOCK CAMERA 31 MM 1 HOLDING PHONE IN LEFT HAND.” No traffic stop. The agency called it a rare case tied to an expired-registration stop; the citation 404 Media obtained does not mention expired registration. The rider said the ticket was dropped in court. The
Electronic Frontier Foundation
treated it as the mission creep privacy groups have warned about: tools sold for serious crime, then used for petty enforcement.
Gadget Review also reports that speed-camera vendors now feed footage into Flock’s cloud under Flock Wing License deals, that Flock sells a Speed Feedback Trailer pairing plates with speed data, and that sequential Flock frames can be used to estimate speed after the fact. Crossville has not published whether any traffic-enforcement, Wing License, or speed-trailer product is enabled here. The 2022 “not ticket cameras” pitch is a promise from a pitch meeting, not a published ban.
Questions for City Council: Is Flock used, or allowed to be used, for moving-violation tickets in Crossville? Is a Flock Wing License, speed-camera ingest, or Speed Feedback Trailer in the live contract? Will council put a written ban on traffic-ticket use in the agreement?
Loitering, curfew, and “vagrancy” are Flock search categories
The Intercept
reported September 9, 2026 that when officers search Flock’s national network they pick a crime category, and one built-in choice is “Curfew/Loitering/Vagrancy Violations.” Records from Plano, Illinois, showed agencies across Illinois, neighboring states, and as far as Georgia tapped that small town’s cameras more than 1,200 times under that label. The Intercept said that is only one town, so the national total is larger. Have I Been Flocked logs cited in the piece show hundreds more of those searches elsewhere.
Some of those queries were plate lookups. Others, the reporting said, show police using the network while looking at people on foot. Examples include a Norcross, Georgia, phone search across more than 6,000 Flock camera networks; LaGrange, Georgia, searches over thousands of networks for heavy traffic at a house and for someone “lingering at a stop sign around midnight”; and West Palm Beach logs shared by EFF investigator Dave Maass that included a query about an outside agency dropping a person labeled a “vagrant” in the city. Flock did not respond to The Intercept’s request for comment.
The same reporting said Tennessee Fusion Center searches (logged through the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation) used that loitering/curfew category across more than 17,000 Flock cameras with a note about a “suspicious person at planned protest site.” See Tennessee writeup. Crossville has not published which search categories local officers may pick, or whether National Lookup lets outside agencies hit local cameras for loitering or curfew reasons.
Questions for City Council: Which Flock search categories are allowed in Crossville? Is “Curfew/Loitering/Vagrancy Violations” enabled? Will council ban network searches that are not tied to a specific, written case?
What Flock told the Patent Office vs. what it tells cities
Independent researchers at
DeFlock SC
flagged a tension worth checking against primary documents: Flock’s public FAQ says LPR products do not use facial recognition and do not identify race, gender, or ethnicity, while a Flock Group Inc. patent describes people-classification and face-matching features that go much further. A patent does not prove Crossville’s cameras are doing all of that today. It does show what the company told the Patent Office it can build, and what cities should demand in writing.
U.S. Patent US11416545B1
(“System and method for object based query of video content captured by a dynamic surveillance network”) lists inventors Garrett Langley and Matt Feury, assignee Flock Group Inc., filing date Oct. 4, 2020, and grant / publication date Aug. 16, 2022.
What the patent filing describes: AI systems that sort people into groups including “male, female, race, etc.,” plus clothing types and estimated height/weight. In one scenario in the patent, investigators get “face recognition data points” from one camera and search other cameras for matching face recognition data points. That means trying to match the same person across cameras when the computer says the match is close enough, even without a name on file.
What the granted legal claims actually say: the numbered claim language talks about object types and object details more generally. It does not spell out “race” or “facial recognition” in the claim text. Race / face wording below is from the long description, not word-for-word claim text.
What Flock tells cities (contradiction):
Flock’s
“Are Flock Products Discriminatory?”
page says LPR cameras “do not use facial recognition,” “do not collect demographic information,” and “do not identify race, gender, or ethnicity.” Its
rights & safeguards / civil-liberties page
repeats that ALPR “does not use facial recognition” and “does not collect or infer race, religion, gender, ethnicity, or other personal traits.” FreeForm is marketed as search “without facial recognition” while still offering people-by-clothing examples (FreeForm section).
What is already for sale (narrower than the patent’s people demographics): FreeForm’s public product page advertises plain-language people descriptions (clothing) and vehicle attributes across video and plate readers, so appearance search is not hypothetical. Whether race / gender classifiers from the patent filing are turned on is a separate question cities should put in writing.
Contract upgrade rights in other cities: Public Flock services agreements commonly let Flock, “in its sole discretion,” make “any upgrades to [the] system or platform that it deems necessary or useful,” stating such upgrades “will not materially change any terms or conditions” of the agreement (example:
Glendale, WI Flock agreement §2.12).
Crossville has not published whether its live contract contains the same clause. Ask using our questions for City Council or a TPRA request.
Questions for City Council: Has anyone on council read
US11416545B1?
Which people-search / demographic / face-related features are contractually enabled vs. disabled? Can Flock push software upgrades without a new council vote? Will the city publish a written ban on race/gender/ethnicity classification and facial recognition if those features exist in the live product?
When Crossville first heard about Flock in 2022, the pitch leaned hard on Amber Alerts and finding missing people. That safety framing is part of a bigger nationwide pattern: Flock pushes company talking points into public view through paid publicity, police press kits that agencies have published in substantially similar form, labeled ads in police trade media, and, as of 2026 reporting, a coaching guide for how police should speak to city councils. Here are three long-running channels documented below. (We did not find clear evidence that Flock pays TikTok or Instagram influencers for these stories.) For the newer council-coaching playbook and a related agency SOP that hides ALPR use from drivers, see
Own the Narrative
and
Wapello County.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and Techdirt report that Flock provided police PIO templates; several agencies published substantially similar language.
The
Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
and
Techdirt
report that Flock provides departments a
Public Information Officer Toolkit templates for the police spokesperson (the PIO). One documented template literally reads: “The ___ Police Department has solved [CRIME] with the help of their Flock Safety camera system. Flock Safety ALPR cameras help law enforcement investigate crime by providing objective evidence. … ____ Police installed Flock cameras on [DATE] to solve and reduce crime in [CITY].” EFF criticizes this practice as vendor-driven police messaging when that language shows up as official copy.
Near word-for-word national examples
This is not just a similar tone. Official pages and police press releases reuse Flock’s signature lines almost unchanged. Compare left (vendor / PIO kit language documented by
EFF
/
Techdirt,
plus Flock FAQ blocks that show up city after city) to right (what the agency published).
“Flock Safety ALPR cameras help law enforcement investigate crime by providing objective evidence.”
“Flock Safety ALPR cameras help law enforcement investigate crime by providing objective evidence.”
“____ Police installed Flock cameras on [DATE] to solve and reduce crime in [CITY].”
“The Campbell Police Department has installed 22 automated license plate reading (ALPR) cameras in strategic areas around Campbell to solve and reduce crime.”
“____ Police installed Flock cameras on [DATE] to solve and reduce crime in [CITY].”
“In February 2023, the Foothill-De Anza Community College District Police Department installed three ALPR cameras at the Foothill campus to solve and reduce crime.”
“Flock Safety ALPR cameras help law enforcement investigate crime by providing objective evidence.”
“The ALPR system also helps law enforcement solve crime by providing the objective evidence needed for investigations.”
Vendor FAQ stock line: “capture license plates and vehicle characteristics, not people or faces.”
“ALPR cameras capture license plates and vehicle characteristics, not people or faces.”
Vendor FAQ stock line: “not intended for minor traffic or parking violations.”
“…not intended for minor traffic or parking violations.”
Vendor marketing claim repeated nationwide: “crime reductions of up to 70 percent.”
“Communities using Flock Safety ALPR have reported crime reductions of up to 70%.”
“Flock Safety ALPR cameras help law enforcement investigate crime by providing objective evidence.”
“The Flock Safety system also helps law enforcement solve crime by providing the objective evidence needed for investigations.”
Vendor marketing claim repeated nationwide: “crime reductions of up to 70 percent.”
“Communities using Flock Safety ALPR have reported crime reductions of up to 70%.”
Vendor FAQ stock line also on Florence / Foothill-De Anza pages: “7 in 10 crimes are committed with a vehicle.”
“According to the International Association of Chiefs of Police, 7 in 10 crimes are committed with a vehicle.”
Flock buys labeled ads that look like articles in police trade media.
The International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP), a big police professional group, has run
“Sponsored Content”
promoting license-plate readers and Flock’s talking points to chiefs and city decision-makers. That is paid advertising with a disclosure label, not independent journalism.
Why this matters in Crossville: if the main thing you hear is “it finds missing people,” ask where that story came from, a company-paid wire, a police press release built from Flock’s templates, or a sponsored trade ad. Then ask City Hall for Crossville’s own search rules, monthly use reports the public can check, and a recorded yes-or-no vote to cancel and remove the cameras.
“Own the Narrative”: Flock’s leaked guide for pitching city councils
404 Media obtained a Flock coaching guide on “how to speak to city councils about public safety technology,” tied to a company webinar titled How to Speak to City Councils: Meeting the Moment with Confidence. The guide tells police to “own the narrative before someone else does” by championing the cameras before residents can oppose them in public comment.
Key tactics in the reporting:
Brief officials early: meet city managers and council members privately, share policies, and answer questions before a packed meeting is someone’s first introduction to the program.
Don’t argue “this isn’t mass surveillance”: Flock strategist Jamie Hudson’s line, as quoted by 404 Media: “Don’t avoid the concept of mass surveillance because you’re not going to convince opponents that it’s not.” Pivot to governance, audits, and safety framing (“You care about your community. That’s why you’re bringing this in.”).
Reframe cost: shift talk away from camera price toward the “cost of unresolved crime.”
Opposition as messaging: the guide says much pushback happens because people “do not understand how it works or how it is governed,” and tells agencies to arrive with a carefully scripted presentation that answers critics in advance.
Highlight “win” case studies: for example Oakland kept the program after heavy scrutiny (140+ comments; Privacy Advisory Commission opposition) by shifting to audit/accountability framing; Richmond reinstated after a pause by pitching local arrest and recovery counts.
EFF campaign director Sarah Hamid told 404 Media that Flock is “scripting the public case for buying” the product and keeping officials focused on abstract “accountability” instead of documented harms. When police and vendor language at City Council sounds pre-scripted, ask whose interests the pitch serves, and demand Crossville’s own search rules, monthly public use reports, and a recorded vote to cancel and remove the cameras.
Agency SOP · Wapello County, IA · Nov. 2025 policy · 404 Media
“Do not mention ALPR usage”: hiding Flock hits from drivers and reports
A separate 404 Media report published a Wapello County, Iowa, Flock standard operating procedures document (created November 2025; obtained by public records). The county has four Flock cameras under a late-2024 contract. The SOP tells officers, in all caps:
“DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE TO THE OCCUPANTS OF THE VEHICLE.”
“DO NOT MENTION ALPR USAGE IN YOUR REPORT OR COMPLAINT UNLESS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.”
If a report must explain how the vehicle was found, prefer vague wording such as: “Using county resources, I discovered the suspect vehicle was bearing an Iowa plate.”
Treat ALPR like intelligence: “a lead that you verified and acted on.” Admit ALPR use if asked a direct question by someone such as an attorney.
That pattern creates a parallel construction risk: defense counsel may never learn a stop started with a Flock hit, so they cannot challenge plate accuracy, hotlist quality, or misuse. This is an agency policy example, not a Flock-authored ebook like the council guide above, and it is not a claim that Crossville has the same SOP. Ask Crossville for its written ALPR / Flock search and disclosure rules.
Vendor pitch · Georgia AG presentation · Aug. 2025 deck · 404 Media (Aug. 2026 docs)
Nexar pitch: turn ~350,000 Uber, Lyft, and delivery dashcams into mobile plate readers
404 Media
published a Flock presentation (obtained by Dunwoody, Georgia resident Jason Hunyar via public records and shared with 404 Media) that Flock wrote for the Georgia Office of the Attorney General in August 2025. The deck markets Flock’s Georgia network and adds:
“Plus Nexar partnership which includes 350k Uber/Lyft and other delivery service devices.”
In plain English: Flock pitched using consumer dashcams from
Nexar
(already sold to rideshare, delivery, and everyday drivers, and marketed for “clear license plate capture with Full HD video”) to scan plates of cars those drivers passed, filling gaps between fixed pole cameras with a roaming fleet. Flock told 404 Media by email that it
never executed
the Nexar partnership. It is unclear whether Uber, Lyft, Nexar customers, or drivers would have been told their dashcams were feeding an ALPR network.
404 Media first reported
the intended Flock–Nexar relationship in August 2025 (sources + Flock confirmation it was exploring the deal). The Georgia AG deck shows Flock was actively pitching that partnership to government customers around the same time. Related mobile-ALPR pattern:
BusPatrol
(school-bus cameras → law-enforcement ALPR search), plus existing mobile plate collection by police-car vendors (Axon) and repossession fleets (Motorola Vigilant / DRN).
Why Crossville should care: fixed Flock poles are not the ceiling of the product vision. Ask in writing whether any vendor has pitched mobile / dashcam / rideshare plate feeds for Cumberland County or Crossville, and refuse the category, not just one logo.
Open livestreams: no login, found via commercial search engines
In late December 2025, researchers and journalists documented a real security failure that undercuts “secure company cloud” talking points: Flock Condor people-tracking PTZ cameras were left streaming on the open internet with no username, no password, and no encryption. Anyone who found the URL could watch live video, download roughly 30 days of archive, and reach administrative/debug panels.
How they were found: Technologist and independent researcher Benn Jordan located admin interfaces via a commercial device search engine (documented as Shodan queries such as “Flock Admin”). Researcher Jon “GainSec” Gaines expanded the set with Shodan and ZoomEye to about 67 live feeds and debug interfaces, see his full write-up. Jordan’s report describes finding the interfaces “using a commercial search engine”, not hacking into a locked system.
Scale:404 Media verified at least ~60 Condor cameras exposed nationwide; GainSec catalogued 67. Feeds covered playgrounds, parking lots, bike paths, street corners, retail lots, and more. The Verge summarized the same findings.
Independent proof: 404 Media’s Jason Koebler recorded himself crossing a street median at Harris Road & Young Street in Bakersfield, California, and watched himself on the open livestream while colleagues watched remotely. Jordan filmed himself on Peachtree Creek Greenway feeds that auto-tracked people.
What was open: live stream + ~30-day archive download + settings/logs/diagnostics: “like Netflix,” in Jordan’s framing, with the ability to delete footage from the open admin UI (he reported not doing so).
“On my phone, I am watching myself in real time as the camera records and livestreams me, without any password or login, to the open internet.”
Jason Koebler, 404 Media (Bakersfield Condor verification)
This site does not re-host the exposed camera stills (including playground feeds). Watch the primary reporting:
404 Media
(Koebler’s Bakersfield self-record) and
Benn Jordan’s video.
The Verge summarized the same findings.
Flock called it a “limited misconfiguration” on a “very small number of devices” and said it was remedied; some agency emails blamed cellular/SIM testing configurations (WFLX / company confirmation). That does not erase the record: people-tracking cameras sold for public safety were briefly a public webcam network discoverable with commercial search tools.
Questions for City Council: Which Flock models are deployed or planned (Falcon vs Condor vs others)? Has the city received written notice of any exposure/incident affecting Crossville or Tennessee partners? What vendor security attestations and breach-notification terms are in the live contract?
In November 2025, independent researcher Jon “GainSec” Gaines published a formal whitepaper: Examining the Security Posture of an Anti-Crime Ecosystem consolidating device-level research on Flock’s public-safety stack (license-plate readers, audio/gunshot hardware, compute modules, and related Android apps). The current public release documents 51 findings, including 22 assigned CVEs and additional findings pending CVE assignment, covering authentication, cryptography, and system-design issues (GitHub archive ·
GainSec summary).
This is separate from the Dec. 2025 open Condor livestream exposure. The whitepaper is about weaknesses in the product line itself, the kind of cameras cities lease, not a claim that Crossville’s units were exploited.
Hardcoded credentials:CVE-2025-47823 describes a hardcoded system password on Flock LPR firmware through version 2.2 (NVD / MITRE).
Unauthenticated admin API:CVE-2025-59403 is a publicly catalogued Flock camera admin-API issue also cited in this site’s liability table.
Device-level control (physical access context): GainSec’s series documents root/debug access paths on Falcon/Sparrow LPR units and related hardware when an attacker can reach the device. Flock’s public response stresses that exploitation would require physical access plus intimate knowledge of internal hardware, and says findings were disclosed earlier in 2025 with CVE registration and ongoing remediations (
Flock response).
Account / MFA risk (oversight, not a GainSec device CVE): A Nov. 2025 congressional letter asked the FTC to investigate Flock’s cybersecurity practices, including that MFA was not required and that weak MFA methods remained supported (
Wyden-Krishnamoorthi FTC letter, PDF).
Flock states the compiled findings do not impair customers’ public-safety use, that no customer action is required because Flock owns/maintains the devices, and that remediations continue via hardware and software updates. Residents can still ask whether Crossville received written notice, what firmware/security posture applies to local units, and what breach-notification terms sit in the live contract.
Questions for City Council: Which camera/compute models are installed? Has the city received written notice of the GainSec / CVE findings or related customer advisories? What firmware versions and MFA requirements apply to Crossville PD accounts? Who verifies evidence integrity if a device were physically compromised?
Meet the CEO of FlockGarrett LangleyFounder & CEO · Flock Safety
Preview still is YouTube’s official thumbnail for the
Forbes interview
in which Langley called DeFlock a “terroristic organization.” Click to play (privacy-enhanced YouTube embed). Linked for commentary on those remarks.
A Flock ALPR unit on a pole, the kind of hardware cities usually lease through a subscription, not buy outright. Flock typically keeps ownership of the camera.
Photo:
Wikimedia Commons (CC0).
Crossville’s contract is with a private vendor whose CEO has a public record residents can evaluate while the city keeps paying Flock: an open-meeting heat-map denial that Oshkosh’s police chief contradicted the next morning (Flock later called the dispute a “minor nuance”), an August 2025 company statement acknowledging that some public remarks about federal access were inaccurate and that Flock “communicated poorly,” followed by later quoted comments that cast FOIA requests as a “weapon” and called camera-mapping activists a “terroristic organization.” That is not “anti-police.” It is a vendor-trust issue.
1. Told a city council heat maps were unavailable. The police chief said otherwise. Cameras came down.
In April 2026, Oshkosh, Wisconsin, asked Flock in open meeting whether the system creates a heat map of a vehicle’s movement. Flock’s chief information security officer said no, that is not available. The next morning, Police Chief Dean Smith said the system does create heat maps. Council killed the contract the same day, seven to zero, and took the cameras down. The ACLU later put Oshkosh in a July 2026 report on Flock misleading councils and the public. Flock called the dispute a “minor nuance.”
2. Acknowledged inaccurate public statements about federal access
After earlier public denials of federal contracts, Langley stated in writing that Flock had run limited pilots with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), and that some public statements had been inaccurate. Illinois’s Secretary of State said Flock’s handling of plate data violated state law. If the CEO’s public assurances can be “inadvertently… inaccurate” on federal access, Crossville should not take verbal promises on sharing or retention at face value, publish the contract, audit logs, and agency list.
“…some of our public statements inadvertently provided inaccurate information… we have engaged in limited pilots with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)… We clearly communicated poorly.”
National Lookup Tool: Flock told Congress that about 75% of its law-enforcement customers enrolled in the “National Lookup Tool,” which lets other enrolled agencies search opted-in camera data nationwide (agencies generally must share their own data to use the tool). Crossville has not published whether it is enrolled. Ask using our questions for City Council.
3. Told police chiefs that FOIA and resident questions are a “coordinated attack”
In December 2025 Langley emailed Flock’s law-enforcement customers that Flock and partner agencies were under “coordinated attack” from activists who want to “defund the police, weaken public safety, and normalize lawlessness”, and that they were “trying to turn a public records process into a weapon.” Staunton, Virginia’s police chief answered that residents seeking answers were “democracy in action.” The city then cancelled Flock because the CEO’s narrative “does not reflect the city’s values.”
“Let’s call this what it is: Flock, and the law enforcement agencies we partner with, are under coordinated attack… from the same activist groups who want to defund the police, weaken public safety, and normalize lawlessness… They’re also trying to turn a public records process into a weapon against you and against us.”
Garrett Langley, Dec. 2025 email to police clients
“What we are seeing here is a group of local citizens who are raising concerns… In short, it is democracy in action.”
Staunton Police Chief Jim Williams, reply to Langley
4. Called camera-mapping privacy activists “terroristic”
In the same Forbes interview cycle, Langley described DeFlock, volunteers mapping publicly visible ALPR locations, as a “terroristic organization,” closer to Antifa than to lawful advocacy. Mapping where tax-funded cameras sit is not terrorism. It is the transparency Crossville is being asked to provide.
“…unfortunately there’s terroristic organizations like Deflock, whose primary motivation is chaos. They are closer to Antifa than they are anything else…”
Garrett Langley, Flock Safety CEO (Forbes interview clip)
5. On Fox, he asked for compromise. Sanders and Burchett are already saying no.
On August 18, 2026, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders posted “STOP AI MASS SURVEILLANCE. STOP FLOCK” on X. Four days later, Langley told Fox News the country has to “compromise” between privacy and safety. He said there is often “no regulation” and “no accountability,” and he wants state regulators to focus less on banning Flock and more on holding police accountable. The same broadcast named Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett as a critic. The Washington Times reported that week that no bill would ban the cameras nationwide. Last year this CEO called camera-mapping volunteers a “terroristic organization.” This week he wants rules that leave the cameras in place. Full writeup: National cases.
6. On All-In, he said the growth business is now drones, not just plate readers.
Business Insider reported August 18, 2026, from Langley’s All-In podcast interview: license-plate readers are now just under half of Flock’s “forward-looking revenue,” and “Drones is probably our fastest growing business right now.” Flock’s Drone as First Responder product launches a docked aircraft to a 911 call, plate-reader hit, or gunshot alert before an officer arrives. A Flock spokesperson told BI the company has more than 200 DFR customers, including police departments and private companies, and is scaling U.S.-designed drones built in Georgia. Flock’s valuation in that reporting is $8.4 billion, with cameras in more than 6,000 communities. Crossville has published Falcon plate readers. It has not published whether any Flock drone product is in the live contract.
The same article recaps the plate-reader backlash Langley is pivoting away from: BI’s own Roseville review found Flock misread plates in 71% of the alerts it checked. Flock told BI it had just cut default plate-data retention from 30 days to 7 days, while existing customers can keep “current, democratically approved retention periods.” In a video to BI, Langley said Flock is “finding bad cops and holding them accountable.” A company that still sells mass plate scans is now selling aerial video as the growth line. Full writeup: National cases.
Why this matters in Crossville: a vendor that misstated who can access the network, then framed public-records requests and camera maps as extremism, is asking the council for trust. Residents should fill council meetings and demand cancellation, or at minimum a yearly public renewal vote with no automatic renewal that skips a public vote, monthly detailed use reports, a written policy, and a list of who can share the data.
Company swaps & Axon
This is not just about Flock
Canceling a Flock contract can help. It does not automatically end mass license-plate surveillance. What keeps happening: cities cancel Flock, then hire Axon (or shop Motorola Vigilant, Rekor, Genetec, Leonardo ELSAG, and others) to put plate readers on the same poles. The sales pitch changes. The job stays the same, scan every car, store the data, search it later. Some vendors go further: Leonardo pitches sensors that correlate plates with phone and Bluetooth IDs.
Aug. 10–11, 2026: ended automatic Flock data sharing and opted out of the nationwide network; ~33 cameras stay. Transparency portal launched; city will rebid ALPR (Axon Outpost trial still under review)
After Flock ended, the city pushed a large Axon deal with a real-time crime center and drones, same kind of surveillance, different company. Axon also runs a vendor-styled “Connect Knoxville” private-camera program (see below)
Knoxville already went through this. Crossville should not look for a “better” plate-reader company. Take the cameras down. If police need location data on a specific car in a specific case, they should get a warrant, not scan every driver every day.
Axon and Flock were partners, not always rivals
Most people treat Axon and Flock as separate vendors. They compete for contracts now. For years they were tightly linked:
April 2020: Axon announced a commercial partnership and a minority, non-controlling investment in Flock Safety; Axon’s sales team would help sell Flock cameras to police
(Axon investor release).
June 2021: Axon Fleet 3 in-car cameras launched with two-way Flock integration. Mobile ALPR reads from Fleet 3 appeared alongside fixed Flock cameras inside Flock’s Lookup Experience, one search covering both systems.
~2023: The partnership dissolved after Axon launched its own competing ALPR line. Flock’s public blog confirmed that Flock processed Fleet 3 footage, applied Vehicle Fingerprint technology, and made it searchable inside Flock
((Flock blog).
Inquest (Sept. 2026):Inquest
described the breakup as Axon cutting Flock’s access to Fleet 3 feeds and launching direct competitors: Axon Outpost (pole-mounted ALPR), Axon Lightpole (streetlight retrofit), and the Fusus real-time crime-center platform that stitches body cams, ALPRs, drones, and private camera networks into one subscription ops map. Treat that as Inquest’s summary of the same rivalry already on this page.
Switching company names does not erase that shared-platform history. Crossville should ask in writing what Axon products (if any) the city or county already uses, whether any past or present sharing with Flock Lookup was enabled, what data was retained, and under what policy.
The site presents itself as a community program while identifying Axon in its footer and offering Axon hardware for sale: residents pay for gear that can extend the police camera network onto private property. Registry data on the site is described as non-public. AI-enabled CORE devices are marketed with preloaded search/alert profiles (the FAQ says no facial recognition, but may recognize weapons, vehicles of interest, etc.).
Why Crossville should care: Connect Knoxville is one local brand on Axon’s national Community Connect directory. If a “Connect Crossville” or county lookalike appears, demand open-meeting approval, published retention/access rules, and enforceable standards before the first device is sold, not after. Deeper East Tennessee writeup:
MaryvillePrivacy.org: Who is Axon?
· EFF on private cameras in real-time crime centers:
EFF (May 2023).
Connect Knoxville is not a homemade neighborhood site. It is one listing in Axon’s Community Connect directory, described there as a voluntary, public-facing program inside the Axon Fusus platform. Residents and businesses register private security cameras with local police, or optionally share a live feed to a real-time crime center (About Communities).
Axon’s FAQ describes two layers. A basic registry maps where cameras sit so police can email the owner for footage; that step does not create a live stream. A second step, live integration, uses a Fusus Core device. The same FAQ says registry information is “protected non-public data” and “not subject to a disclosure in a public data request,” that Fusus “does not currently” include native facial recognition, and that it does use AI to search video on the platform.
Why Crossville should care: canceling Flock and hiring Axon is how this product arrives. Knoxville already runs it. Treat a “Connect Crossville” pitch as an Axon Fusus camera network, not a neighborhood watch page.
In 2025, Axon and Amazon’s Ring announced a partnership letting agencies request Ring doorbell footage, routed through Axon’s evidence system
(Axon blog).
Participation is framed as optional, but footage that leaves a home for a vendor’s servers can be stored and shared under police/vendor rules. Amazon’s Ring canceled a separate planned partnership with Flock Safety in February 2026 after backlash; the Axon-Ring pathway remains relevant wherever agencies run Axon Evidence next door (including Knoxville’s stack).
Axon corporate record residents can evaluate (attributed reporting)
Public reporting and court documents, not Crossville findings, that inform how residents should weigh Axon’s “responsible innovation” pitch:
AI Ethics Board resignation (2022): Nine of twelve members resigned after Axon announced Taser-equipped drones for schools, bypassing a board that had voted against proceeding. Resigning members said they had “lost faith in Axon’s ability to be a responsible partner”
(Policing Project statement).
The Markup
later reported that former board materials were removed from Axon’s site and that Axon acquired drone firm Dedrone.
FTC VieVu antitrust: The FTC challenged Axon’s acquisition of body-camera rival VieVu as anticompetitive; Axon litigated FTC process authority. Municipal plaintiffs later sued alleging monopoly pricing; a federal judge allowed damages claims to proceed (see
Cohen Milstein case page).
“Excited delirium” litigation strategy:Physicians for Human Rights
and Reuters investigative reporting describe how the contested diagnosis appeared in hundreds of deaths after Taser use and how Axon (then Taser International) funded research and expert testimony used in related litigation. Major medical groups do not recognize it as a valid cause of death. This site does not make medical findings; the reporting is relevant to vendor trust.
Each product layer can feed the same cloud. Agencies that start with Tasers and body cams often add in-car video, Evidence.com, Fusus real-time ops, fixed ALPR (Outpost / Lightpost), drones, AI Draft One, Ring requests, and resident fususCORE devices. The privacy risk is aggregation: searchable location history plus private feeds plus AI analytics without strict written limits.
TASER / conducted energy weapons
Body-worn cameras → Evidence.com
Fleet 3 in-car video + mobile ALPR (historically searchable inside Flock Lookup)
Fusus / RTCC real-time operating picture
Outpost / Lightpost fixed ALPR (sold as Flock replacement)
Axon Air / Dedrone aerial and counter-drone tools
Draft One AI report writing
Ring request pipeline + fususCORE private-camera hardware
Public pages Axon documents
Axon tells agencies they can publish some of this to the public. That is useful for residents. It is not a claim that Crossville or Cumberland County already runs Axon Evidence.
ALPR policy page.Axon’s Fleet 3 help
describes a public ALPR Policy and Usage page at the path /alpr/public/policy on an agency’s Evidence site. Administrators can turn it on. Axon says that if the page is not activated, that address returns a not-found error. The help article names Lewisville, Texas, Police as a live sample. Ask whether any local agency has an Evidence tenant and whether that page is on.
Community Request.Axon Community Request
collects photos, video, and documents from the public and uploads them into Evidence. Axon’s
Community Request help
lists a “Public Request” type delivered by shareable URL or QR code, open to anyone with the link. That is evidence intake, not the same product as Knoxville’s
Connect Knoxville
private-camera registry / live-feed program.
MaryvillePrivacy.org
mapped these Axon-documented public pages for East Tennessee readers, including the same Fleet 3 policy-path help article and Community Request materials.
Some cities hire Axon after dumping Flock because Axon says it is safer or more private. That sales pitch does not stop abuse. Axon products raise separate transparency, conflict-of-interest, and false-alert concerns documented below. None of this is a reason to bring Axon, or any plate-reader company, to Crossville.
Axon · Draft One · AI police reports · 2024 to 2025
Draft One: AI writes the police report, then deletes the draft
Axon’s Draft One uses body-cam audio to write a draft police report.
EFF
and
Ars Technica
reported that the original AI draft is not kept, so it is hard to compare versions or prove what the AI wrote. Agencies can also turn off a check meant to make sure officers actually read the draft, also covered by
Mother Jones
and the
ACLU’s Automated Police Reports brief (PDF).
Generative-AI tools can produce inaccurate content. If the draft is gone, courts and defense lawyers have a harder time seeing what the machine said versus what the officer signed.
Axon Fusus · Atlanta ethics · conflict of interest
Atlanta ethics finding: police official owned a Fusus stake while working city business without required disclosure
The
Atlanta Ethics Office
found APD Chief Administrative Officer Marshall Freeman consulted for Fusus, owned a stake in the company, and worked on Fusus city business without proper disclosure, including pitching it to other agencies
(Atlanta Press Collective;
The Guardian).
Axon later bought Fusus for about $240 million.
The Intercept
reported he pitched at least 14 cities; at least nine later signed or expanded Axon Fusus contracts. The Ethics Office fined him $5,000.
Axon’s help pages describe false alerts and outdated stolen-car lists
The
Fleet 3 ALPR FAQ
tells officers how to mark alerts as Incorrect or Wrong State/Province.
Axon’s
snooze guidance
describes procedures for handling incorrect and wrong-state alerts: older software often cannot tell which state a plate is from (so the same characters from another state can trigger a false alert), can sometimes “read” things that are not plates, and depends on stolen-car lists that can be out of date. Axon’s
early 2026 firmware notes
describe improved state detection aimed at reducing Wrong State hits. False or outdated alerts are how innocent people get stopped at gunpoint when officers do not check the plate themselves.
Multiple plate-reader companies · LAPD Inspector General · 2026
LAPD: about 1 in 3 stolen-car alerts were wrong. Axon cameras were part of the system
LAPD’s Inspector General looked at two months of alerts. Officers treated 161 alerts as real stolen-vehicle hits that turned out wrong, often because the stolen-car list was outdated, then ran high-risk stops with guns drawn
(TechTimes;
Biometric Update).
Reporting on the audit says LAPD’s plate-reader system included Flock, Motorola, and Axon. LAPD later let the Flock contract expire. Changing companies does not fix bad stolen-car lists, skipped checks, or scanning every car. Taking the cameras down does.
Documented Flock and ALPR problems, personal lookups with no case, misread plates, outdated stolen-car lists, are not unique to one company. They happen when police get a searchable log of where cars go, alerts that feel like “stop that car now,” and little day-to-day supervision. Axon’s in-car readers, pole cameras, Evidence storage, and Fusus real-time tools can do the same things, and can pull in body cams, private-camera feeds, and AI report writing too. That is why Crossville should not switch companies, and why Crossville should take these cameras down completely and stay away from the same kind of technology under any other name.
Same problems with Flock or Axon
Personal stalking: An officer looks up an ex’s plate or travel history, the
Institute for Justice
has documented dozens of these cases; which company sold the cameras does not matter much
Searches with no real case: Looking up yourself, family, or coworkers for no official reason: AJC / GBI reporting (2026)
describes Georgia agencies finding misuse when they actually checked the logs
False or outdated stolen-car alerts: A misread plate or a car no longer stolen still triggers a stop if nobody checks
Wrong-state or similar-looking plates: Axon’s own docs describe Wrong State hits; Flock misreads are widely reported, both put innocent drivers at risk
Sharing with outsiders: Local data can still leave the agency through partners and APIs unless the cameras are gone
Logs that do not stop abuse: Search logs exist; misuse is usually found by victims or rare audits, not by company marketing
Axon adds more problems, not more privacy
More cameras, more places: Readers in patrol cars plus pole/streetlight cameras mean more of your trips get logged
Fusus real-time screen: Combines live video and plate hits; warrant rules still depend on agency policy and law
Evidence.com: Plate records sit with body-cam video in the same Axon system, harder for a city to leave Axon entirely
Draft One: AI writes report drafts, then deletes them, harder to see what the machine produced
Bigger packages: Places like Douglas County swap Flock for Axon and add drones, more surveillance while saying “we canceled Flock”
Other vendors shopping the same job
Axon is the loudest Flock replacement in 2026, not the only one. Procurement writeups and vendor pitches show agencies evaluating Motorola Vigilant, Rekor, Genetec AutoVu, Verkada, Avigilon, PlateSmart, and Leonardo ELSAG alongside or instead of Flock. Different logos. Same mass plate capture unless Crossville refuses the category.
Leonardo ELSAG · SignalTrace · June 2026 reporting
Leonardo SignalTrace, plate readers that also scoop phones and Bluetooth IDs
Leonardo (ELSAG ALPR line) markets SignalTrace as a retrofit for license-plate cameras: sensors capture identifiers from nearby phones, wearables, Wi-Fi sources, RFID tags (even pet microchips in product materials), and vehicle systems, then correlate recurring “electronic fingerprints” with plate reads and locations. Company materials say the system can help identify a vehicle even without a readable plate. Reporting by
404 Media
and
Techdirt
describes this as turning car trackers into people trackers, mass collection first, investigative query later.
Why Crossville should care: a “not Flock” camera deal can still expand into device-sensing ALPR. Ask in writing whether any vendor has pitched SignalTrace, ELSAG, or Bluetooth/Wi-Fi vehicle correlation, and refuse the whole stack.
Motorola Vigilant, enterprise plate databases and sharing fights
Motorola Solutions acquired Vigilant Solutions and operates large ALPR networks and the LEARN-style sharing platforms used by many agencies. EFF’s ALPR research found agencies sharing Vigilant data with large numbers of other entities on average. In 2024, CISA published advisories on Vigilant ALPR security flaws (weak credentials / encryption issues). In July 2026, a California class action (amended complaint) alleged Motorola/Vigilant facilitated unlawful out-of-state and federal sharing of California ALPR data, allegations in a filed complaint, not a court judgment.
LAPD’s multi-vendor ALPR stack (Flock, Motorola, and Axon named in Inspector General coverage) shows cities already mix these brands. Quitting Flock for Motorola is still mass scanning.
Industry and procurement trackers list additional ALPR competitors cities evaluate when Flock is politically toxic. Every name is the same ask category unless Crossville refuses plate scanning entirely:
Axon Outpost / Lightpost fixed ALPR, Fleet 3 mobile ALPR, Fusus RTCC, Evidence.com, Draft One, Ring / fususCORE (covered above).
Leonardo ELSAG fixed/mobile ALPR plus SignalTrace device-correlation pitch (above).
Rekor often pitched for highway / transit / open-road ALPR.
Genetec AutoVu ALPR inside Genetec video / security platforms used by larger cities.
Verkada / Avigilon / PlateSmart cloud or software ALPR layers that can ride on existing cameras.
Secondary market overview (vendor-facing, use cautiously):
Civic IQ: Flock alternatives list (2026).
Crossville’s ask stays the same: no mass ALPR under any brand.
What to tell City Council
Cancel Flock and remove every camera. Do not evaluate, demo, trial, or install Axon, Leonardo ELSAG / SignalTrace, Motorola Vigilant, Rekor, Genetec, Verkada, or any other plate-reader system, ever again.
Do not scan every driver. Ordinary drivers’ plates should not be logged all day with no suspicion.
Warrants for specific lookups. If police need where a specific car went in a specific case, they should get a warrant, not a subscription that scans everyone first.
Claims like “the city owns the data” or “shorter retention” do not fix this. Taking the cameras down does.
Independent and local news coverage of Flock Safety ALPR cameras, how the product is marketed versus how it is used, wrongful stops from camera errors, security exposures, and police misuse. These clips are third-party reporting; they are not Crossville-produced content. Preview stills load from YouTube’s thumbnail CDN (lazy, no referrer). The player loads only after you click play, from YouTube’s privacy-enhanced domain (the same technique DuckDuckGo uses). YouTube can still count the view. Official agency Facebook reels open on Facebook instead (Facebook is not contacted until you click).
Crossville
