Flock Safety Cameras and the Growing Concern Over AI-Powered Surveillance
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Flock says its cameras make US safer - so why are they being sabotaged?
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Figure caption: Watch: Activist explains app that maps Flock camera locations
By Ellie House
Reporting from Houston, Texas
Published 9 hours ago
Houston's historic Old Braeswood neighbourhood is affluent and tree-lined. These are not the kind of streets where you would expect to see co-ordinated vandalism. Yet here, four surveillance cameras were attacked and cut down in the middle of the night.
The metal poles were severed, leaving the distinctive black oval cameras and accompanying solar panels lying on the ground. On some of the cameras was a red sign reading: "Notice. 24/7 video recording."
These cameras are run by a company called Flock Safety and this sabotage, which happened in late July, is a signal of growing concern over the nationwide spread of sophisticated AI-powered surveillance systems. Similar vandalism incidents have occurred in Minnesota, California, and Georgia.
Proponents say they have made communities safer and have helped dramatically increase the rate at which crimes are solved. But recent examples of misuse have caused concern. Critics say the cameras, which take pictures of the rear of every car that drives past, are overly broad investigative tools that treat civilians like suspects.
They see the little black poles popping up in their neighbourhoods as visible reminders of state power, at a time when public confidence in institutions is historically low and many are concerned about the accelerating pace of technological change and the influence of AI on people's lives.
A new age of surveillance
Founded in 2017, Flock Safety has become one of the country's biggest makers of Automatic Licence Plate Readers (ALPRs). These AI-powered cameras take a picture of the rear of every car that drives past. Footage is retained for a specified amount of time.
But little is known about the extent to which Flock is being used - the company does not publish exact data, but says it works with more than 7,000 communities nationwide and estimates that there are approximately 100,000 cameras deployed.
Records obtained by the BBC provide a rare glimpse into the extensive network of cameras and surveillance tech being used in America's fourth largest city, Houston, including the use of controversial facial recognition software powered by artificial intelligence.
Flock is not just selling cameras - it is selling access to a database that can include thousands of cameras from around the country. Older ALPRs did not have this vast network, which is a major selling point for law enforcement.
For example, Houston's Metro Transit Authority owns 35 cameras. But documents show Metro has access to around 20,000 devices in the Flock network - including some as far as Albany County, New York.
And as Flock expands, so too can the scope of investigations. Documents released to the BBC show how the network has grown year-on-year. In the Cypress-Fairbanks independent school district, a typical licence plate lookup in April 2024 searched around 270 networks of cameras.
By April 2025, the typical search scope had almost doubled to around 500 networks. In April 2026, 20% of searches were conducted across more than 6,000 networks.
Critics in Houston say this national network concerns them more than the local cameras.