Flock Cameras Are Surveilling You Before You Get Home—Know Your Rights

No matter where in the country you live, you’ve likely seen one—and more than one have absolutely seen you. 

The use of automated license plate reader technology has become ubiquitous, led by companies such as Flock Safety. Flock’s cameras identify vehicle details—including make, model, color, and other visible characteristics—and then upload that data into a nationwide mass surveillance system that law enforcement can access. 

Flock now says it operates in more than 6,000 communities across 49 states, running upward of 20 billion vehicle scans a month. But privacy concerns, and misuse by local police, are causing a backlash: Dozens of city councils across the United States have recently canceled, rejected, or deactivated Flock’s ALPRs within their jurisdiction. 

Flock has long sought to involve homeowners associations and other private property managers within their system. That could be a concern for homeowners and renters.

A camera installed by your HOA board is not subject to the same level of scrutiny and accountability as one installed by local police—and once it's plugged into Flock's network, it can end up feeding the same nationwide, searchable database that law enforcement uses, whether or not any resident ever voted on it.

How a neighborhood ends up under surveillance

The pitch to HOA boards and landlords is straightforward: solar-powered, LTE-connected cameras that need no wiring or utility hookup, marketed as a way to deter theft, identify suspicious vehicles, and catch illegal dumping, all without hiring security staff.

Flock's own marketing to HOAs promises boards full control of the system, with law enforcement access framed as an optional add-on.

But once a private HOA system is integrated with police, it feeds into the same database officers search when investigating anything from a stolen car to an immigration case, according to privacy advocates tracking the rollout. And the decision to build this infrastructure, in most communities, isn't put to a resident vote at all.

"Most HOA declarations and bylaws give the elected board authority to enter ordinary service contracts without a community vote, and boards treat a camera contract as ordinary," according to a homeowner-rights guide published by DeFlockILM, a North Carolina advocacy group tracking installations. "So in many communities you do not have a veto."

That pattern has played out from North Carolina—where the Chadwick Shores HOA in Sneads Ferry and a dozen Charlotte-area neighborhoods have installed the cameras—to California, where private developers, homeowners associations, and apartment complexes are using cameras that were once supposed to aid the Los Angeles Police Department and have now gone private. 

This dynamic puts residents in a bind: No one wants to live in an unsafe community, but at what cost?

"Landlords and HOAs can't arbitrarily install cameras wherever they want, collect data about your comings and goings, and do whatever they want with it," says Jamie E. Wright, a trial attorney and founder of The Wright Law Firm. "Residents shouldn't feel like they have to choose between safety and privacy, but that doesn't give your HOA carte blanche to monitor your every move."

Flock keeps pushing deeper into communities

License plate cameras were only the start. Over the past year, Flock has quietly tested how far it can push into audio, into other people's cars, and into other people's data.

Flock cameras also have gunshot-detection sensors. On paper, these are a useful tool: When triggered, they capture a five-second audio clip, run it through a machine-learning model, and upload whatever gets flagged. Flock's comparison of choice: an Amazon Alexa that wakes up only for a "public safety event."

But USA Today has reported confirmed cases where triggered clips picked up real conversation, not just gunfire. Then, in October, Flock disclosed it wanted the same microphones listening for "human distress."

By mid-July, Flock killed the distress-detection pilot, chalking it up to "community consultation." But those microphones didn't go anywhere: Thousands remain active, still listening for gunfire, still capable of picking up whatever else happens to be 5 seconds long and nearby. According to reporting, they’re mostly picking up fireworks. 

Some of these devices were installed on private property, without the owners’ consent, and left in place despite removal requests. Some were placed mere feet from people’s homes.

Flock has also floated ways to grow the network beyond its own hardware. A leaked presentation, prepared for the Georgia Attorney General's Office, showed Flock had proposed turning roughly 350,000 Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers into a mobile surveillance network—using dashcams those drivers already had installed to scan plates along their routes. 

It’s one thing if you are aware that cameras have been installed in a certain community or on a certain street. But if the cameras are mobile and covering every part of a community that a car can reach, it becomes virtually impossible to avoid becoming part of the database.

Flock told 404 Media the deal never happened. But the same presentation lists "hundreds of Commercial Business and HOA" accounts in Georgia as part of the network it wanted to extend. 

Know your rights in and around your home

Homeowners and renters have more leverage here than most people realize, but only if they use it before signing anything, not after.

"Before speaking with an HOA, property manager, or landlord about surveillance on private property, residents should know their rights," says Wright. Homeowners should review HOA declarations, bylaws, and rules and regulations. Renters should request a copy of their lease, any addendum, and community policies. 

"Look for the terms 'surveillance,' 'monitoring,' and 'third party,'" says David Weisselberger, an expungement attorney and founding partner at Erase the Case. HOA bylaws tend to bury camera policy inside a general "rules and regulations" clause rather than a dedicated privacy section.

A bylaw that lets the board install cameras "as deemed necessary" hands it total control over placement and retention, with no requirement to get resident consent for each new camera.

"Lease agreements seldom specify whether or not a landlord's camera system captures audio alongside video, and this matters a lot," Weisselberger says.

A system recording sound near a private entrance or porch is different from one just watching a parking lot, he explains. His advice: Ask directly where the footage goes and how long it's kept, and don't sign until you have an answer.

Reading the fine print is only half the job. The other half is coming armed with specific questions a board or landlord may not otherwise volunteer answers to.

"Who is authorized to run searches against the system? How long will data be stored? Can police request access to the information? Is data shared with third parties outside of the rental community? Is there an audit trail showing which employees looked up a specific vehicle?"

Those, Wright says, are the questions residents should be asking before they agree to anything.

Are Flock cameras in your neighborhood?

The short answer is yes, but to know where does take a bit of sleuthing.

To help you do your own research, open-source websites like DeFlock and Eyes On Flock have popped up online to allow users to track where Flock, and other automated license plate readers, are installed throughout the country.

Keep in mind that these cameras are already up in thousands of neighborhoods, and most of them aren't coming down. What's left to decide is how many more go up, and whether residents get a say before the next one does—because the pattern so far says they won't unless they ask.