Don't Flock: Apparently, Your Car Is a Suspect Now

by Matthew R. Paden,  

Thursday, July 22nd 2026

Don't Flock: Apparently, Your Car Is a Suspect Now

There was a time when you could get into your car, drive somewhere, and nobody knew where you went.

It was called privacy.

Admittedly, it was a strange and primitive concept. People actually had to follow you if they wanted to know where you were going. Detectives wore trench coats.

Suspicious neighbors used binoculars. Husbands hired private investigators.

Thankfully, technology has liberated us from all that tedious nonsense.

Enter Flock cameras.

Flock Safety’s automated license-plate readers are popping up across America, quietly photographing vehicles and recording details such as license plates, vehicle characteristics, time and location.

The company says the technology is designed to help law enforcement solve crimes and locate stolen vehicles and missing people.

Which sounds perfectly reasonable.

Until you remember that your car isn't necessarily committing a crime. It may simply be going to Target.

And now, apparently, that is an event worthy of documentation.

Look, I understand the argument. If someone steals a car, flees a crime scene or kidnaps someone, having technology that can help police track down the vehicle is useful.

Nobody wants to be the person arguing for privacy while a stolen minivan containing a kidnapped child drives merrily across three counties.

But somewhere between “help police find criminals” and “we're going to build a nationwide searchable history of where vehicles go”, we may have wandered into territory that deserves a little more discussion.

Because the fundamental question isn't whether Flock cameras can catch criminals.

Of course they can.

The question is what happens when incredibly powerful surveillance technology becomes so ordinary that we stop questioning it. And let's not kid ourselves. We Americans are exceptionally good at this.

We willingly carry tracking devices in our pockets. We put cameras inside our homes.

We tell social media companies where we eat, what we buy, who we're dating and occasionally what we're having for breakfast. So why not let a camera record where our Honda Civic goes?

At least the Honda doesn't have a podcast.

The controversy has intensified after reports of law-enforcement personnel misusing Flock systems, including allegations of officers using the technology to track people for improper reasons.

Flock recently announced new safeguards, including mandatory auditing tools, case codes for searches and a reduction in default data retention from 30 days to seven.

Which is reassuring.

Nothing says “We've got this under control” quite like installing an alarm system after somebody has already wandered through the house.

And here's where the whole thing gets deliciously Orwellian. The camera isn't necessarily watching you.

It's watching your car.

Apparently, this distinction is supposed to make everyone feel better. “Oh, don't worry, Mrs. Johnson. We're not tracking you. We're tracking your 2018 Subaru.”

Well, thank God.

I was worried there for a second.

The technology itself isn't necessarily the villain. Used responsibly, with strict rules, transparency, limited retention and meaningful oversight, it could be a valuable law-enforcement tool.

But that's the part Americans have historically struggled with:

Meaningful oversight.

We love inventing powerful technology first and asking philosophical questions sometime around the third lawsuit. So perhaps the real lesson of Flock cameras isn't that we're living in a surveillance state.

Not yet.

It's that we're becoming remarkably comfortable with the idea that everywhere we go should leave a digital breadcrumb trail—just in case someone eventually decides they need to know.

And if that sounds unsettling, don't worry.

There's probably a flock camera nearby that can record your reaction and pretend it's tracking your car while sending your location to Google and Walmart for unsolicited advertising.