Is Flock Safety a Privacy Risk? What the Reporting Says
A factual look at the privacy concerns raised about Flock Safety’s license-plate-reader network — and what an on-premise, no-data-sharing alternative looks like.
Flock Safety operates a large network of automated license-plate readers (ALPRs) used by police departments and neighborhoods. Civil-liberties groups and journalists have raised concerns about how that data is shared and retained. This guide summarizes the public reporting factually and explains how a facility-scoped, on-premise approach differs.
What the concerns are
Reporting by the ACLU, NPR, and local outlets has focused on a few themes: nationwide sharing of license-plate data across agencies, retention of records on people not suspected of any crime, and a number of US municipalities choosing to pause or cancel Flock contracts over these data-sharing and oversight questions. These are public-policy concerns about a cloud, network-wide data model.
How an on-premise model differs
Police.Live is facility-scoped, not a shared regional network. Processing and storage stay on the agency’s own network, it can run fully air-gapped, and there is no national data-sharing layer — data is not pooled across other customers. That architecture answers the core concern in the reporting: footage and reads do not have to leave the facility or flow into a cross-agency cloud.
Frequently asked questions
Does Flock Safety share my data with other agencies?
Flock’s model includes a network where participating agencies can share license-plate data; the scope and controls have been the subject of public reporting and some municipal pushback. Specifics depend on each agency’s settings and policies — review Flock’s own documentation and your jurisdiction’s rules.
What is a privacy-focused alternative to Flock?
For agencies that want AI surveillance without a shared cloud network, an on-premise, facility-scoped platform like Police.Live keeps data on your own network with optional (disable-able) cloud reporting and no cross-agency pooling. See the full Police.Live vs Flock Safety comparison.