Flock Safety: 20 Billion Scans a Month

They said it wouldn't be used for immigration. It was.

TL;DR: Flock Safety operates license plate readers in over 5,000 communities, scanning 20 billion vehicles monthly. Their policy says the data can't be used for immigration enforcement. But in May 2025, 404 Media discovered cops were running "side door" searches for ICE anyway, roughly 4,000 immigration-related searches. San Francisco police let out-of-state cops make 1.6 million illegal searches, including at least 19 for ICE. Washington State agencies gave Border Patrol "back door" access. Flock eventually suspended access in some states. But the damage was done. Your license plate has been tracked, and the data found its way to immigration enforcement despite every policy saying it wouldn't.

The Scale of Flock's Network

Flock Safety isn't a small operation. It's infrastructure [1].

The numbers:

  • 5,000+ communities in 49 states
  • 20 billion vehicle scans per month
  • Cameras on streets, parking lots, neighborhoods, highways
  • Police departments, HOAs, and private businesses as customers

Every time you drive past a Flock camera, your license plate gets logged. Time, location, direction of travel. The data flows into a searchable network that law enforcement can query.

Flock calls it public safety. Critics call it mass vehicle surveillance.

4,000 Immigration Searches

In May 2025, 404 Media broke the story [2]: local cops across the country were searching Flock's database on behalf of ICE.

How they found out: Flock's system requires users to enter a "search reason." Cops typed things like:

  • "ICE"
  • "illegal immigration"
  • "immigration enforcement"
  • Similar terms

404 Media identified roughly 4,000 immigration-related searches in Flock's data.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Flock's policy explicitly prohibits using the data for immigration enforcement. But policies don't stop searches. They just create liability.

The "Side Door" Problem

ICE doesn't have direct access to Flock. But local cops do. And local cops can search on ICE's behalf.

How it works:

  1. ICE wants to find someone
  2. ICE asks local police to search Flock
  3. Local cop runs the search (sometimes typing "ICE" as the reason)
  4. Results go back to ICE

This is the "side door." ICE gets the data without having official access. The system's policies are technically followed, ICE didn't search directly. But the outcome is the same.

State by State: What We Found

Virginia

About 50 immigration-related enforcement searches were conducted in Flock data across Fairfax, Chesterfield, Isle of Wight, Loudoun and Stafford counties between June 2024 and April 2025 [3].

The logs showed data from over 1,000 cameras tracking Virginia motorists was "shared widely between agencies and potentially used beyond its original purpose."

San Francisco

SFPD allowed out-of-state police to make over 1.6 million illegal searches of its Flock database, including at least 19 marked as related to ICE [4].

California sanctuary laws bar police from assisting in immigration enforcement. State law prohibits sharing license plate data with out-of-state cops. SFPD did it anyway.

Washington State

At least eight local law enforcement agencies enabled direct data sharing with Border Patrol during 2025 [5].

Border Patrol also had "back door" access to license plate data from at least ten local agencies that had not explicitly authorized sharing, from at least May to August 2025.

Translation: Agencies that didn't agree to share were sharing anyway, because of how Flock's network is configured.

Flock's Response

When the immigration searches became public, Flock took action.

June 2025: Flock suspended access to its surveillance systems for law enforcement in California, Illinois, and Virginia [6].

The company said the suspension "aligned with stricter state regulations governing surveillance technology."

But the suspension came after the searches were exposed. Not before. Flock's policies banned immigration enforcement use the whole time. The policies just didn't stop it from happening.

Cities Are Pulling the Plug

Some cities aren't waiting for Flock to fix the problem. They're ending the contracts.

Charlottesville, Virginia (December 2025): City council voted to end a one-year Flock pilot program [7].

Police praised the cameras for solving crimes. But council members were concerned that "federal agencies like ICE could use the information to identify and track illegal immigrants."

The Charlottesville Police Department had already disconnected its Flock system from other law enforcement agencies in June, after the ICE search revelations.

Other cities are having similar debates. The question isn't whether Flock helps solve crimes (it does). The question is whether the surveillance infrastructure is worth the immigration enforcement risk.

It's Not Just Immigration

The EFF analyzed 10 months of Flock searches nationwide and found something else [8]:

Over 50 federal, state, and local agencies ran hundreds of searches connected to protest activity.

In some cases, police specifically targeted known activist groups.

And then there's this: A police officer in Texas used Flock to search nationwide for a woman who'd had a self-administered abortion, illegal in Texas.

License plate readers sold as crime-fighting tools. Used for immigration enforcement, protest surveillance, and hunting abortion seekers.

The Ring Connection

Flock isn't just working with police. They're partnering with Amazon Ring [9].

Ring's doorbell cameras capture faces. Flock's cameras capture license plates. Together, they create a more complete surveillance picture: who visited your house, and what car they drove.

Ring has facial recognition now. Flock has vehicle tracking. The partnership means these datasets can potentially be correlated.

Your neighbor's Ring sees your face. The Flock camera down the street logs your plate. Two companies. Two databases. One surveillance infrastructure.

How Flock Actually Works

Understanding the technical setup helps explain how "side doors" and "back doors" happen.

The network:

  • Individual police departments buy Flock cameras
  • Cameras feed into Flock's cloud platform
  • Departments can choose to share data with other agencies
  • "Hot lists" flag specific plates for alerts
  • Officers can search the network for plate locations

The sharing problem:

  • Data sharing settings are often permissive by default
  • Agencies don't always know who can access their data
  • Federal agencies can get access through state/local partners
  • Audit logs exist but aren't always reviewed

Washington agencies that "didn't authorize" Border Patrol access were still sharing, because their data was accessible to agencies that did share with Border Patrol. The network effect means your local department's data can end up places they never intended.

Your Data in the System

If you've driven in any of the 5,000+ Flock communities, your license plate has been logged.

What's captured:

  • License plate number
  • Time and date
  • Location (GPS coordinates)
  • Direction of travel
  • Vehicle make/model/color (in some cases)
  • Photos of your vehicle

How long it's kept: Varies by agency. Some keep data for 30 days. Some keep it for years.

Can you opt out? No. There's no consent mechanism. If you drive on public roads with license plates, you're in the system.

The Bottom Line

Flock Safety built a nationwide license plate surveillance network. They said the data wouldn't be used for immigration enforcement. It was, roughly 4,000 times that we know of.

San Francisco police let 1.6 million illegal out-of-state searches happen. Washington agencies gave Border Patrol access they never authorized. Virginia cops ran immigration searches for ICE.

Flock suspended some access after getting caught. Some cities are canceling contracts. But the network is still operating in thousands of communities. Your plate is still being logged.

Policies don't stop surveillance. They just create paperwork. The data exists. The searches happen. The side doors stay open until someone shuts them.

References

  1. Wikipedia, Flock Safety
  2. VPM, The feds' hidden immigration weapon: Virginia's surveillance network (July 2025)
  3. UW Center for Human Rights, Flock Surveillance Systems Expose Washington Data to Immigration Enforcement (October 2025)
  4. SF Standard, SFPD let Georgia, Texas cops illegally search city surveillance data on behalf of ICE (September 2025)
  5. ACLU Massachusetts, Flock Gives Law Enforcement All Over the Country Access to Your Location (October 2025)
  6. Flock Blocks ICE from License Plate Reader Access in Several States (2025)
  7. Charlottesville ends license plate surveillance program over ICE concerns (December 2025)
  8. EFF, How Cops Are Using Flock Safety's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists (November 2025)
  9. ACLU, Flock's Aggressive Expansions Go Far Beyond Simple Driver Surveillance