If you don't want to take the risk destroying or spray painting the lense or solar panels of these devices, a picket sign installed right in front of it works pretty well while probably not getting you sent to jail. You may even be able to get away with ziptying a trashbag over it without too much fuss.
What we need is a leak of a Flock database. Ideally, due to a security fuck-up by someone other than the jurisdiction that installed them. (Company itself, or another city doing Flock's warrantless search feature.)
Having granular location data for an entire town's license plates should still be creepy and damaging enough that it gets these things torn out and replaced with something more thoughtfully designed.
(Side note: Flock Safety has paid Mercury nearly half a million dollars in lobbying fees [1]. One of the two lobbyists they hired also lobbies for Tencent [2]. The other for Alibaba [3]. In case you're talking to your local, state and/or federal electeds.)
Here in the UK we also have London's congestion charge.
All around the outskirts of London on all the main arterial roads, there are ANPR cameras tracking number plates to fine you, if you have not paid the £15 charge for entering the city.
A worrying example of ANPR.
I visited my mum one weekend, she lives over 300 miles from where I live on the egde of London.
She had a phone call while I was there from the police. They were asking to speak to me!
They said that they were concerned that there were two cars with the same registration number plate. Could I check that my car was still outside my mums home.
They had stopped another car, not the same make as mine, in London with the same number plate. The police said that the other car had been involved in criminal activity.
I can only assume that they tracked my car over 300 miles with ANPR, checked out who I was, then did a family association check, found my mum's contact details and called to speak to me.
I also assume that they must have already been to my home address and found I was not home.
There are ANPR cameras all over the UK for the purpose of checking insurance, road tax, and wanted vehicles. They are usually much more discreet than speed cameras because they don't jave to make themselves visible, and in fact police forces don't make locations public. My understanding is that the police can keep records of all the vehicles that drove past for up to a year.
At least you were lucky that the criminal masterminds who cloned your car's number plate did not bother to match the make and model, that made it obvious to spot for the police. Otherwise you might have had trouble explaining...
> uses a Raspberry Pi 5, a Halo AI board, and You Only Look Once (YOLO) recognition software to build a “computer vision system that’s much more accurate than anything on the market for law enforcement” for $250
> A simple Python application to test adversarial noise attacks on license plate recognition systems (see my PlateShapez demo) and create an output dataset to train more effective attack models.. small, hardly-noticeable, random gaussian shapes to confuse AI license plate readers
I live in a small town a ways out of the downtown area, so I thought "they're probably only on the highway where I've seen cameras"... Nope, basically every intersection with a stoplight near me is listed as having four nodes. Much more densely than nearby larger cities on the map even...
Here in Belgium the contract for these cameras on highways was given to a family run business who charged nothing at all for the hardware and installation in exchange for a decent cut of every fine that's issues with them. They're financially very healthy.
Maybe I'm less sensitive to this coming from the UK, where we're quited to ANPR, but this feels pretty okay to me. When you drive a giant hunk of metal, you accept a higher burden of government surveillance.
Skimming the map, I see many listed are in parking lots for Home Depot and Lowe's. I assume that's because of high dollar items and common theft issues? I'm wondering if those cameras are specifically operated by this Flock company, or others as well.
I have very mixed feelings about this tech. On one hand there does feel like a deteriorating society, more petty crime, I almost never see police anymore.
Surely I have some roses colored glasses from my youth but it felt like growing up and in my 20s you would see cops writing tickets. Lots of street racing during the day on busy streets and just general chaos. Without a doubt education and parenting is a root problem for most of these issues.
The idea of people able to simple track cars is elegant and can be a huge multiplier of effectiveness for police. I am generally not opposed to it. The problem as we know is there really is not good safety guards on it. Too many law enforcement have used it improperly. The root there is this idea that the thin blue line exists, police are under educated, trained and paid.
> Surely I have some roses colored glasses from my youth but it felt like growing up and in my 20s you would see cops writing tickets.
I do think public sentiment would swing hard against this type of widespread tracking if we could see laws enforced more regularly.
I live in a low crime city, but even I’m growing frustrated with the flagrant violation of basic laws. We take the kids to nearby park where it’s becoming common for maybe 1 in 100 cars to speed 50-60mph down the adjoining road (twice the speed limit). 1 in 100 doesn’t sound like a lot but it means i see it several times during a single visit. They don’t slow down or stop at the crosswalks.
Only 10 years ago, I remember speed patrols on this road once a week. They would nab anyone flagrantly blowing crosswalks or going significantly over the speed limit. It had a huge effect and you rarely saw violations.
Now: Nothing. I was talking to my wife and we couldn’t remember the last time there was an officer doing speed checks on that road, despite the constant problems and being adjacent to the biggest park around.
The basic laws and regulations just don’t seem to matter any more. Even the trails we like to hike where dogs are only allowed on-leash is full of off-leash dogs. There was a time when you risked getting random a ticket if you were caught with an off-leash dog, but now it’s not a possibility anyone even thinks about. The spot checks and ticket writing previously kept everyone honest, but now it’s rare to see a dog on leash. My friend’s dog (on leash) was attacked by someone’s off leash dog recently and they barely wrestled it away. A visiting friend of mine was bitten by an off leash dog while walking, though it was a small dog she could shake off. It’s still all so bizarre to me that any enforcement of the rules seemingly disappeared overnight.
I know it’s nothing relative to the people living in areas where shoplifting is rampant or you have to fear violent crime, but I think the root cause is similar: A complete lack of visible enforcement emboldens people to ignore them. When the problem becomes widespread, public opinion about invasive enforcement and monitoring becomes more welcoming.
A map can only tell you where the fixed position cameras are. Both police cars and tow truck companies are scanning every plate on every car they drive past and share that info with each other.
I think we need a parallel, citizen-run ALPR network that could e.g. send out warnings when e.g. ICE vehicles drive by. Surely what's good for the goose is good for the gander?
Maybe I'm still bitter about having my car being hit twice, both times being a hit-and-run which I was basically 100% on the hook for, but maybe I'm okay with this (provided it's only on taxpayer funded roads only)? Driving, at least in the US, is a privilege and you don't have a reasonable expectation of privacy out in public anyway.
Fifteen years ago now in Dec 2010 I made a post on my now defunct blog about ALPR and I updated it for a few years. My experiences with LE along side my technical skillset had me 'finding' things. I wont post the entire blog entry text since it is too long for this format but I did include some relevant entries to the point of how long this has really been occurring. Links are very old so YMMV.
=========
Dec 1 2010 Automated License Plate Readers - ALPR
So tonight someone we will call the "suspect" robbed a liquor store with a shotgun and the Delaware State Police were in action with ALPR technology. It was stated by a witness that the "suspect" was seen getting into a late 90's model civic or small hatchback so thus the ALPR call. At the same time troopers were going door to door in the area checking on the well fair of residence in the area. Aside from a helicopter, K9 tracking, and what was at least 15 law enforcement officers from various local jurisdictions setup in a layered perimeter around the area the suspect evaded. I have included a mp3 segment of the Automatic License Plate Recognition vehicle convo and a swf clip showing a trooper setup at an exterior perimeter point.
27 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 48.9 ms ] threadHaving granular location data for an entire town's license plates should still be creepy and damaging enough that it gets these things torn out and replaced with something more thoughtfully designed.
(Side note: Flock Safety has paid Mercury nearly half a million dollars in lobbying fees [1]. One of the two lobbyists they hired also lobbies for Tencent [2]. The other for Alibaba [3]. In case you're talking to your local, state and/or federal electeds.)
[1] https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/clients/lobbyis...
[2] https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/lobbyists/summa...
[3] https://www.opensecrets.org/federal-lobbying/lobbyists/summa...
Then you may stick QR code on bumper pointing to web page you control and track when something hits the page.
All around the outskirts of London on all the main arterial roads, there are ANPR cameras tracking number plates to fine you, if you have not paid the £15 charge for entering the city.
A worrying example of ANPR.
I visited my mum one weekend, she lives over 300 miles from where I live on the egde of London.
She had a phone call while I was there from the police. They were asking to speak to me!
They said that they were concerned that there were two cars with the same registration number plate. Could I check that my car was still outside my mums home.
They had stopped another car, not the same make as mine, in London with the same number plate. The police said that the other car had been involved in criminal activity.
I can only assume that they tracked my car over 300 miles with ANPR, checked out who I was, then did a family association check, found my mum's contact details and called to speak to me.
I also assume that they must have already been to my home address and found I was not home.
At least you were lucky that the criminal masterminds who cloned your car's number plate did not bother to match the make and model, that made it obvious to spot for the police. Otherwise you might have had trouble explaining...
> uses a Raspberry Pi 5, a Halo AI board, and You Only Look Once (YOLO) recognition software to build a “computer vision system that’s much more accurate than anything on the market for law enforcement” for $250
https://github.com/bennjordan/ALPRovingGround
> A simple Python application to test adversarial noise attacks on license plate recognition systems (see my PlateShapez demo) and create an output dataset to train more effective attack models.. small, hardly-noticeable, random gaussian shapes to confuse AI license plate readers
"Flock's gunshot detection microphones will start listening for human voices" (250 comments), https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45473698
I live in a small town a ways out of the downtown area, so I thought "they're probably only on the highway where I've seen cameras"... Nope, basically every intersection with a stoplight near me is listed as having four nodes. Much more densely than nearby larger cities on the map even...
I don't like that one bit.
— Garry Tan, Sept 03, 2025,
YC CEO while defending Flock on X.
https://xcancel.com/garrytan/status/1963310592615485955
If not realtime, then historically, without a warrant, for any reason they want
Not saying that's okay but it's what's been happening for decades and well known/documented
They even know every single person who visited Epstein's Island via cellphone tracking
Surely I have some roses colored glasses from my youth but it felt like growing up and in my 20s you would see cops writing tickets. Lots of street racing during the day on busy streets and just general chaos. Without a doubt education and parenting is a root problem for most of these issues.
The idea of people able to simple track cars is elegant and can be a huge multiplier of effectiveness for police. I am generally not opposed to it. The problem as we know is there really is not good safety guards on it. Too many law enforcement have used it improperly. The root there is this idea that the thin blue line exists, police are under educated, trained and paid.
It’s a very mixed feeling for myself.
I do think public sentiment would swing hard against this type of widespread tracking if we could see laws enforced more regularly.
I live in a low crime city, but even I’m growing frustrated with the flagrant violation of basic laws. We take the kids to nearby park where it’s becoming common for maybe 1 in 100 cars to speed 50-60mph down the adjoining road (twice the speed limit). 1 in 100 doesn’t sound like a lot but it means i see it several times during a single visit. They don’t slow down or stop at the crosswalks.
Only 10 years ago, I remember speed patrols on this road once a week. They would nab anyone flagrantly blowing crosswalks or going significantly over the speed limit. It had a huge effect and you rarely saw violations.
Now: Nothing. I was talking to my wife and we couldn’t remember the last time there was an officer doing speed checks on that road, despite the constant problems and being adjacent to the biggest park around.
The basic laws and regulations just don’t seem to matter any more. Even the trails we like to hike where dogs are only allowed on-leash is full of off-leash dogs. There was a time when you risked getting random a ticket if you were caught with an off-leash dog, but now it’s not a possibility anyone even thinks about. The spot checks and ticket writing previously kept everyone honest, but now it’s rare to see a dog on leash. My friend’s dog (on leash) was attacked by someone’s off leash dog recently and they barely wrestled it away. A visiting friend of mine was bitten by an off leash dog while walking, though it was a small dog she could shake off. It’s still all so bizarre to me that any enforcement of the rules seemingly disappeared overnight.
I know it’s nothing relative to the people living in areas where shoplifting is rampant or you have to fear violent crime, but I think the root cause is similar: A complete lack of visible enforcement emboldens people to ignore them. When the problem becomes widespread, public opinion about invasive enforcement and monitoring becomes more welcoming.
=========
Dec 1 2010 Automated License Plate Readers - ALPR So tonight someone we will call the "suspect" robbed a liquor store with a shotgun and the Delaware State Police were in action with ALPR technology. It was stated by a witness that the "suspect" was seen getting into a late 90's model civic or small hatchback so thus the ALPR call. At the same time troopers were going door to door in the area checking on the well fair of residence in the area. Aside from a helicopter, K9 tracking, and what was at least 15 law enforcement officers from various local jurisdictions setup in a layered perimeter around the area the suspect evaded. I have included a mp3 segment of the Automatic License Plate Recognition vehicle convo and a swf clip showing a trooper setup at an exterior perimeter point.
UPDATE: 08/07/2011 Finally the word is out as they only had it for years. Link with video http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20110807/NEWS02/108070...
UPDATE2: 12/02/2011 National general news on ALPR http://www.privacylives.com/washington-post-eyes-turn-to-lic...
UPDATE3: 12/08/2011 Have enough bank? - then you can even buy it http://www.avigilon.com/products/licenseplaterecognition/
UPDATE4: 07/31/2012 Getting some more press http://www.aclu.org/automatic-license-plate-readers-threat-a... Are they watching you? http://www.aclu.org/maps/automatic-license-plate-readers-are...
UPDATE5: 07/16/2012 Tracking you illegally? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57594179/aclu-warns-of-m...
UPDATE6: 04/07/2015 Gone and done it - Even with all the Ed Snowden press now they are going national with ALPR. https://cdt.org/blog/government-keeps-its-eyes-on-the-road-w...