By OLIVIA WHALE ’29
Updated 11:50 a.m. EDT, 9 Oct 2026
Flock cameras are storming the nation, and not all in a good way. Flock cameras are very controversial; some people say that they are amazing for finding missing persons and for reducing crime. Others say that they do the complete opposite.
These cameras come from the company Flock Safety. Founded in 2017, they are known for automated license plate recognition (ALPR) and video surveillance. Issues began in March of 2022, where the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) gave a report censuring the safety of the product. In June of 2024, a Virginia court ruling claimed that the location collecting system was unconstitutional without a warrant. This leads to the question: to what extent do Flock cameras challenge or support Fourth Amendment protections?
According to the Flock website, there are many protective measures in place, resulting in “10,000+ missing people located in 2025” and “42% of Flock customers recovered more than half of all stolen vehicles in their jurisdiction.” The cameras are also used in emergency responses, package theft, trespassing, burglary and investigations within law enforcement. On April 20, 2026, six abducted children were recovered in Colorado. They were found over the course of five months, and were reportedly found faster with Flock Cameras. Ethically, Professor of Philosophy Benjamin Lipscomb commented that though there are safeguards, there is a trade-off. “It’s a good thing to be able to rapidly and reliably track the movements of abductors. It’s also a good thing to get to live your life without the state surveilling your every public movement, not having to worry that some corrupt official will find a way to use this tech to spy on you.”
The Fourth Amendment outlines, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” There are two perspectives in consideration of this and Flock cameras: one where it is thought to be constitutional and good for the safety of society, or where it is thought to be unconstitutional and a privacy violation.
Malachi Falco ‘28 explains, “On a basic level, cameras which have the capability to track your every move are a form of mass surveillance. Law-abiding citizens are still having their every move tracked and recorded. However, multiple wrongful arrests have been made without warrants just based on Flock’s flawed AI system, which is a direct violation of the protections of the Fourth Amendment.” He adds how, “Flock cameras are part of a system which uses AI to identify and catalogue cars based on license plate, color, make, model, customizations and even identifiable dents or scratches. Flock records this information for any vehicle it photographs and has a massive, unrestricted database of personal data.”
On the other hand, Madeline McCutcheon ‘27 gave an example, “From my understanding, a flock camera is extremely similar to what an E-Zpass station is set up for (the main purpose being for vehicle tracking and identification), so there shouldn’t be a reason for a large political upset, as this particular system became more popular during the COVID-19 pandemic when the E-Zpass workers could not work in person and has now become an easier method to efficiently track where and when vehicles are moving from place to place.”
Flock cameras are a very controversial topic and there is no definitive right or wrong morality to it. As for the Fourth Amendment, even that is heavily debated as to if these cameras are constitutional or not. Will North America become safer, or become more like a dystopian society? We will have to wait and see. ★
