A defense of Flock license-plate cameras is running into a wave of public anger, and the pushback is bad news for the surveillance company and the police using it.

• Flock's cameras scan license plates in over 5,000 cities, but most residents never voted to have them.
• A polished media defense argued the cameras only target criminals, leaning on the company's own feel-good stats about rescued kids and recovered cars.
• Critics point to heavy misuse: an LAPD audit found a 32% false-positive rate on stolen-car alerts, and about 50 officers have been charged with using the system to stalk people.
• Wrong-car stops are turning dangerous, including one where police pinned in an innocent family on a Wisconsin interstate with guns drawn over a bad Flock flag.
• Since early 2025, dozens of cities have canceled contracts or shut off cameras over Fourth Amendment worries, and local news coverage is almost uniformly negative.

Outlook: Expect Flock to become a national flashpoint like data centers, with politicians campaigning against it and more towns pushing for votes, audits, and shutdowns.