Technology
Atlanta suburb's license plate camera network expands data sharing to thousands of organizations nationwide
Public records reveal widespread automated sharing of Flock Safety camera data, highlighting municipal confusion over broad surveillance settings.
The short version
- The Alpharetta Police Department in Georgia automatically approves license plate data requests for law enforcement agencies within 500 miles, making its Flock Safety camera data accessible to over 2,000 organizations.
- Municipalities and police departments in multiple states reported finding expansive search configurations and nationwide lookup tools active without explicit local awareness.
- Flock Safety stated that data sharing is disabled by default for onboarding customers, though officials in multiple cities faced ambiguity over historical default settings.
Key facts
- Data gathered by Flock Safety surveillance cameras in Alpharetta, Georgia, is accessible to more than 2,000 organizations, while Alpharetta receives data from over 1,300 entities.[Wired]
- The Alpharetta Police Department automatically grants Flock data requests from law enforcement agencies located within a 500-mile radius.[Wired]
- Since June 2025, the number of entities receiving Alpharetta's Flock data rose by roughly 42 percent, and those sending data to Alpharetta increased by about 125 percent.[Wired]
- In Reynoldsburg, Ohio, the city attorney stated that the department discovered its Nationwide Lookup feature was active without leadership's knowledge, having been configured as early as March 2023.[Wired]
- Palo Alto, California officials stated that Flock activated Nationwide Lookup for all customers in mid-2023, though California law prohibits sharing automatic license plate reader data with out-of-state or federal law enforcement.[Wired]