Investigations
Long-form reporting on how Flock cameras are used and misused.
29 posts
The Cost of Being Alive: Flock CEO Langley at TED2026
Flock's CEO told a $12,500-a-seat TED audience that in South Africa, "crime is simply the cost of being alive." His own company is helping keep it that way.
InvestigationsFlock Goes Global: How a $7.5 Billion Surveillance Company Found Its International Partner in South Africa's Most Controversial Camera Network
Vumacam sells Flock surveillance in South Africa. Its founder was criminally investigated for operating unlicensed cameras. Its cameras have been called digital apartheid. It all tracks.
Investigations"Flock Wing License(s) Included": How Speed Cameras Became Surveillance Cameras
Procurement records reveal how Flock Safety sneaks its cameras into school zones with zero data governance provisions in the contract.
InvestigationsWho Is Flock Intelligence?
An unknown Flock-affiliated entity searched Dunwoody GA PD's camera networks 606 times in five months using AI-powered queries — many targeting political expression. Four other Flock-internal organizations also appear in the logs.
InvestigationsYou Will Own Nothing: How Flock Safety Keeps Cities From Their Own Surveillance Data
Flock customers technically 'own' their footage — but can't access high-resolution originals, get images with unreliable timestamps and scrubbed metadata, and must submit formal requests through Flock's own evidence platform just to obtain their own records.
InvestigationsLorem Ipsum Is the Most Honest Thing on Flock's Trust Center
Flock launched a half-finished Trust Center full of placeholder text and unvetted claims — an unintentional demonstration of the access control failures it was built to deny.
InvestigationsFlock Releases Marketing Video, Leaks CJI and Own Address
Flock's two-minute cinematic masterpiece appears to show real license plates with real hotlist entries broadcast on screen — and the address of an unidentified industrial building surrounded by Flock hardware.
InvestigationsIowa's ALPR Bill Would Make Des Moines the License Plate Data Capital of America
An amendment strips warrant requirements and hands insurance companies access to a national surveillance database — with Iowa as the legal gateway.
InvestigationsFlock promises to implement logging feature it claimed existed
Flock Safety's blog post about 'enhanced guardrails' is a confession dressed as a product announcement. The company admits it wasn't logging sharing configuration changes — a CJIS Security Policy violation — while its guardrails still leave tribal nations and private universities outside SB 34's reach.
InvestigationsFlock's Best Argument: Cops Can't Stop Being Racist Without Us
A surveillance company and a surveillance-industry lobbyist walk onto a livestream.
InvestigationsEighteen Years of Nightly Lineups
Iowa's DOT has run nightly facial recognition scans on millions of driver's license photos for eighteen years. In the past four, the scans have led to 14 criminal charges and zero recorded convictions.
InvestigationsThe Many Faces of Flock Permits (Part II)
Iowa has highway safety standards. Kind of.
InvestigationsFlock's New Pitch: Surveillance or Serial Killers
A TV ad, a recycled op-ed, and the quiet admission that guardrails don't actually work.
InvestigationsFlock's Censorship Gambit Fails at Cloudflare (Part V)
After three weeks of review, Cloudflare rejects Cyble's baseless takedown complaint—citing Flock's own admission that the data came from public records.
InvestigationsHas Flock Been Hacked? What Their Security Blog Post Doesn't Say
Flock claims it has "never been hacked." A fact-check of their January 2026 blog post reveals semantic games, undisclosed offshore contractors, and CJIS compliance failures.
InvestigationsThe 250,000+ Camera "City-Wide" Network
A bug in Flock's system swept 257,806 cameras into an "ICE detainer" search. Flock claims no data was accessed—but California, Illinois, and Virginia prohibit such searches regardless.
InvestigationsFlock and Cyble: Aligned Values (Part IV)
Y Combinator funds both surveillance infrastructure and the machinery to silence its critics.
InvestigationsFlock and Cyble Inc. Pile on the Allegations with no Evidence in Sight (Part III)
The third installment in this series on when a government contractor pays a company for "Takedown Services" to prevent transparency in government
InvestigationsThe "Public Roads" Myth: Why Mass Surveillance Violates the Fourth Amendment
The Fourth Amendment protects people, not places.
InvestigationsFlock and Cyble Inc. Continue to File False Notices
When a government contractor pays a company for "Takedown Services" to prevent transparency in government (Part II)
InvestigationsFlock Records Cops, Sends Recordings to Denmark
Evidence reveals Flock records police sessions and transmits raw data to foreign vendors, bypassing security controls. A complaint to Iowa DPS details active security incidents, the use of unvetted foreign contractors, and a software feature allowing users to unilaterally silently suppress NCIC alerts organization-wide.
InvestigationsFlock and Cyble Inc. Weaponize "Cybercrime" Takedowns to Silence Critics
When a government contractor pays a company for "Takedown Services" to prevent transparency in government
InvestigationsVector State: License Plates for Pedestrians
Flock's cameras have face detection triggers and use ReID technology to track people by appearance—treating humans like license plates.
InvestigationsFederal Insecurity: How Flock Lies to the Feds
Flock's security chief certified FBI compliance despite knowing their devices fail basic security requirements. Either they handle sensitive data illegally, or they lied.
InvestigationsFlock Ships American Surveillance Footage to Offshore Contractors
Contractors in the Philippines are labeling faces and tracking vehicles through 80,000+ Flock cameras. Local police installed them; Flock ships the data overseas.
InvestigationsThe Data-Sharing Shell Game: Flock, RISS, and the Federal Surveillance Backdoor
Despite Illinois' TRUST Act ban on immigration data sharing, ICE maintains backdoor access to Flock's database through RISS and local agencies.
InvestigationsToo Much, Too Late: A Digital Dragnet for a Homicide
How police used Flock's digital dragnet to investigate a homicide months after critical evidence was lost due to negligence.
Investigations157 Pages of Evidence, 200 Jurisdictions, Zero Oversight
A 157-page murder investigation file with informant details leaked to 200 agencies via Flock's uncontrolled audit log system.
InvestigationsThe Many Faces of Flock Permits
Iowa DOT has a permitting process for roadside equipment. Kind of.