Find Flock Safety Cameras Near You: Maps and Public Records

If you've seen an unmarked pole with a solar panel and a small camera at an intersection near your house, it might be a Flock Safety automated license plate reader. People searching for Flock Safety camera maps usually want two things: whether their block is being recorded, and how long that footage sticks around. There is no single official map. Finding cameras near you takes three steps, in order: a crowdsourced map, your city's transparency portal if it has one, and a public-records request if you need specifics.

How do I find Flock cameras near my address?

Start broad, then narrow. Crowdsourced maps built from volunteer reports will show you roughly where cameras have been spotted in your area. If your city runs an official transparency portal, that will tell you how many cameras the local police department has registered and sometimes where. If you need exact addresses, retention periods, audit logs, or contract terms, those live in public records your police department is required to produce. The Electronic Frontier Foundation keeps its own tracker of which law enforcement agencies use which surveillance tools, the Atlas of Surveillance, which is a useful starting point before you dig into local records. Each step gives you more detail than the last, and each one depends on records or reporting other people have already fought to get released.

What are the community-maintained Flock camera maps?

The best-known volunteer effort is DeFlock, at deflock.me, a crowdsourced project that maps camera locations using reports from volunteers. Zoom the map to your own address to see what neighbors have logged nearby, and add a pin yourself if you spot a device that isn't on it. According to EFF's reporting on the project, the effort "has mapped out more than 16,000 individual camera locations, more than a third of which are Flock Safety devices." For comparison, EFF's own Atlas of Surveillance, which tracks which law enforcement agencies use which surveillance tools rather than individual device locations, "has identified more than 1,700 agencies using ALPRs." The two databases answer different questions — one maps agencies, the other maps hardware — so it's worth checking both if you want the fuller picture.

These maps exist because volunteers drive around, spot the devices, and log them. That means coverage is uneven: a street with no reported camera may still have one nobody has logged yet, and a camera flagged last year may have been moved or removed.

Does Flock publish an official camera map, and why is this hard to find?

No. Flock has not published its own public map of camera locations, and the company has pushed back against people who do. EFF's reporting describes how "the company sent DeFlock.me and its creator Will Freeman a cease-and-desist letter, claiming that the project dilutes its trademark." EFF took up Freeman's case and told Flock's lawyers the legal threat didn't hold up, writing: "Your claims of dilution by blurring and/or tarnishment fail at the threshold, without even needing to address why dilution is unlikely. Federal anti-dilution law includes express carve-outs for any noncommercial use of a mark and for any use in connection with criticizing or commenting on the mark owner or its products." Freeman refused to take the map down, and that formal letter to Flock Safety is now public.

This history matters for anyone searching for camera locations: the main obstacle to a clear public map hasn't been a lack of volunteer effort, it's been the vendor's own attempts to suppress the mapping. The same EFF reporting notes that license plate readers don't just log plate numbers — they build what the piece calls vehicle "fingerprints," including "the make, model, color and other distinguishing features" of each car that passes. That same reporting cites officers who accessed ALPR systems to track ex-partners.

How do I check Flock's transparency portal for my city?

Some cities that contract with Flock host a transparency portal, usually linked from the police department's own website. Campbell, California is one example: its police department page links out to its Flock ALPR Transparency Portal and discloses specifics most departments don't volunteer, including that "the Campbell Police Department has installed 22 automated license plate reading (ALPR) cameras in strategic areas around Campbell to solve and reduce crime." The page also states a retention limit: "We store all data for only 30 days (or in adherence with local laws)," and specifies that "the customer, Campbell Police Department, is the only one to determine who has access to the footage," not Flock itself.

To check whether your city has something similar, search your local police department's website for "ALPR," "license plate reader," or "Flock." If a portal exists, it will typically show camera counts, a short policy summary, and sometimes a records-request link — Campbell's page includes a direct link labeled "Public Records" for residents who want more than the FAQ covers. If your department has no portal and no public mention of Flock at all, that's a sign you'll need to go the records-request route to find out anything.

How do I file a public records request for camera locations and retention policy?

Every state has a public records law — the federal Freedom of Information Act covers federal agencies, and each state has its own statute covering local police departments. We've covered how to request your data from a company and your California privacy rights elsewhere; the drafting habits carry over, but here you're writing to a police department under your state's public records act, not to a company under its privacy policy.

There's a real precedent for what this can produce. EFF and the ACLU of Southern California filed California Public Records Act requests with the Los Angeles Police Department and the LA County Sheriff's Department seeking, as EFF's case page on automated license plate readers describes, "documents about each agency's use of Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) systems" along with a sample week of plate data. The agencies didn't fully comply — EFF notes "they failed to provide documents related to sharing information with other agencies, and neither agency produced the data collected during the one-week period" — so EFF and the ACLU sued in Los Angeles County Superior Court and ultimately won. The same pressure led to a 2019 vote by a California legislative committee "to direct the State Auditor to launch a probe into the use of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) by law enforcement agencies," the first statewide survey of who uses the technology and which vendors they use.

When you file your own request, ask for three things specifically: the physical locations of ALPR cameras in your jurisdiction; the department's written ALPR policy, including retention period and who can access the data; and any audit logs showing who has queried the system and why. San Bruno, California's police department publishes its policy, which is a useful model for what to ask for. It states that "the appropriate Division Captain shall be responsible for developing guidelines and procedures to comply with the requirements of Civil Code § 1798.90.5 et seq.," and sets a concrete retention rule: "ALPR records with no connection to a criminal investigation are purged/deleted from Flock Safety's Database after 30 days." The full policy document also requires that access be logged, stating that "all ALPR data downloaded to the mobile workstation and in storage shall be accessible only through a login/password-protected system capable of documenting all access of information by name, date and time."

If your department has no written policy at all, that absence is itself worth reporting to your city council.

What can I do if Flock cameras are deployed in my area?

Once you know where the cameras are and what the retention and access rules say, bring that information to your city council, not just your police department. Council meetings are where ALPR contracts get approved, renewed, or canceled, and council agendas are public records in their own right — checking past agendas for "Flock," "ALPR," or "license plate reader" will usually turn up when and how the contract was approved, and whether there was public comment at the time. Campbell's own Flock ALPR page links directly to the city's public-records portal, a model worth checking for in your own city.

Concrete questions to raise at a council meeting: What is the retention period, and does it match a written policy like San Bruno's 30-day limit? Who can access the data, and is that access logged? Has the department produced an audit showing compliance, the way California's legislative committee pushed the state auditor to do statewide, as described on EFF's ALPR case page? If your department shares data with other agencies, as EFF found LAPD and the Sheriff's Department were reluctant to disclose, ask whether that sharing is documented and whether residents can see it. Cities can and do change course once residents raise these questions directly — but it starts with knowing where the cameras actually are, what the paperwork says, and asking your council to put both on the public record.