Posted August 14, 2026
It seems rare these days to find an issue that crosses party lines, but a shared distrust of the Flock Safety system that police swear by and the general public has increasingly sworn off seems to do just that. The Flock system comprises more than 120,000 license plate readers and surveillance systems across 49 states. They contract with more than 7,000 law enforcement agencies—roughly 40 percent of all departments in the country—to offer access to a nationwide tracking network.
While other companies offer similar surveillance services, what sets Flock apart is how every photograph or data point is uploaded to a searchable cloud database that can be shared with any of the company’s other clients. Now they’re developing a system of drones that can automatically deploy to the site of a 911 call, in response to gunfire, or when one of their license plate readers detects a vehicle of interest.
If all of this sounds a bit dystopian and creepy, you’re not alone in coming to that conclusion.
Its cameras are in more than 6,000 communities, and many of those residents are starting to push back. Some have voiced their protests in heated city council meetings or by contributing to DeFlock, a site that tracks Flock cameras and is pushing to see them removed. Others have been a bit more direct in their response, destroying cameras, covering them with bags and paint, or even cutting down the poles on which they stand.
All of it has contributed to growing tension between civilians being tracked and the government agencies that have come to rely on their tracking. And the tensions seem unlikely to ease anytime soon.
Flock claims to have helped find more than ten thousand missing people last year, in addition to supporting over one million criminal investigations and 20 percent of solved cases in the regions where its cameras were deployed. And both the company and its advocates are quick to offer anecdotal evidence of a steep drop in crime, faster response times, and a general improvement in the safety of communities where they reside.
As a result, for every city that has decided not to renew its contract, an average of seven new locations have signed up. At that rate, it won’t be long until the camera system covers most of the country.
Perhaps if the general public trusted the people behind the cameras, that notion would seem a bit less dire. And to be sure, there are those who don’t see a problem with the surveillance system in the first place. However, even if the vast majority of police use their access to help the general public, it doesn’t take many bad examples to demonstrate why people are afraid of this system’s continued expansion.
And there have been enough bad examples to erode much of the trust that remained between the police and the people they are sworn to protect.
At least fifty police officers (and counting) have been accused of misusing Flock cameras and similar systems to stalk women or otherwise track people without any legal cause to do so. And it’s rare for them to face the level of charges you might expect for an explicit violation of privacy and abuse of power.
In one such instance, prosecutors in Florida announced that they’re dropping charges against a former sheriff’s deputy who was fired after admitting that he used his access to the state’s driver database and Flock cameras to stalk and pull over an actress with whom he’d spoken while on the set of a television show. Instead of jail, he’ll pay $1,700 to cover investigative and prosecutorial costs, along with one hundred hours of community service.
And the public mistrust goes beyond local officers as well.
While Flock does not have an active contract with ICE or other federal agencies, local entities are free to share their data with them. As such, many on the political left are wary of granting the government that kind of access, even if it’s not explicitly provided by Flock.
At the same time, many of those on the political right are equally incensed by the nationwide surveillance system and see in the cameras a future more at home in China than the United States.
What’s interesting, though, is that even though the two sides do not necessarily agree on the specifics, both share the same basic mistrust of granting the government—be it local or federal—this much access to the daily lives of the American people.
Flock is quick to point to the guardrails and audit system they’ve put in place to limit any abuses of that power, and they just added new restrictions yesterday. Their system’s default setting will now store data for seven days rather than thirty, and tracking search requests will be mandatory rather than optional by the end of the year. As their CEO, Garrett Langley, put it, “We’re not Big Brother. We’re focused on protecting people.”
While that may be true, these guardrails still rely heavily on maintaining a high level of trust in the people who have access to them, both now and in the future. As their statement on the updated policies notes, “The final safeguard is human.” For many Americans, that’s simply asking for too much. And history shows that they’re right to be wary.
C. S. Lewis once wrote,
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
To be clear, I am not saying that those who support Flock cameras or favor a greater degree of government intervention in our lives are supporting such tyranny. There are solid arguments in favor of their use, and at the end of the day, I don’t really think this is a moral issue (aside from the officers who clearly sinned by abusing the technology for personal reasons).
Moreover, most advocates of prioritizing security over privacy believe it is the moral choice. And, in some cases, they could be correct. But more often than not, when you cede some measure of freedom in the name of safety, it’s rare to get it back.
One of the few areas where that’s not the case is in our relationship with God. The kind of freedom, peace, and purpose that he offers to those who surrender their lives to him is truly unique. However, if we’re not careful, it can be easy to treat our omnipotent heavenly Father like the would-be omnipotent moral busybodies that Lewis spoke of.
Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why so many of us struggle to fully give every facet of ourselves over to the Lord. On some level, we recognize that doing so with anyone else would be foolish. Yet, with God, it’s exactly what we were created to do.
So, where are you holding back from complete surrender to the Lord? Is there an aspect of your life that you’re hesitant to turn over to him? Some measure of autonomy or privacy that you can’t bring yourself to let go of?
If so, ask the Holy Spirit to help you understand what’s holding you back and to give you the faith necessary to trust everything to the Lord.
Let’s start right now.
“God has proven himself as a faithful father. Now it falls to us to be trusting children.” —Max Lucado
The post What are Flock cameras, and why do so many fear them? appeared first on Denison Forum.
