What is a Flock camera?

When it senses a moving car, the camera takes a quick burst of still photos, not video. Flock’s FAQ says it takes “somewhere in the range of 6-12 images” of a car each time. At night, infrared light makes the plate stand out, while parts of the scene that don’t reflect light stay dark.

• 2CA · 8SAM123SAMPLE
• 1BLUE PICKUP
• 3BACK RACK
• 4STICKER
• 5WHEELS

34.15, -118.142026-05-12 19:20ZNORTHBOUND

1. 1Blue pickup
2. 2Sample plate
3. 3Back rack
4. 4Sticker
5. 5Wheels

Software reads the plate and its state. It also tags the car’s make, color and type, plus things like a roof rack, a bumper sticker or a temporary plate. Each read is saved with the time, the place, the camera and the way the car was going.

Officers can search by full or partial plate, or by how the car looks. They can also get an alert when a car on a list passes, such as a stolen car or one named in an AMBER Alert. Flock says officers should check the plate and the list before a stop.

In Providence, Rhode Island, police told WPRI about one case. Nearby video showed what the car looked like. Then a plate reader search found the car and its plate. There, only 45 of the city’s 445 officers can use the system, and each user is audited every month.

Some alerts turn out to be wrong. Police in Roseville, California, found that 1,011 of 1,427 stolen or felony alerts in 2023 and 2024 were misreads. None of those misreads led to a stop or an arrest.

Flock says its default is to keep reads for 7 days. It was 30 days until August 13, 2026, and customers from before then can keep their old setting. Each customer can set its own rule.

Many agencies post their rule on a transparency portal, and EyesOnFlock lists 1,603 of these portals (Oct 14, 2026). Of the 1,595 run by public agencies, 1,520 say how long reads are kept. The most common answer is 30 days, on 1,188 portals.

The portals also show who can search the reads. Of these, 1,044 post a sharing list (Oct 14, 2026). The middle list names about 208 agencies, and the longest, the Adrian Police Department’s, names 3,870.

On September 3, 2026, two news reports added to this. Some Illinois police and sheriffs told Shaw Local they will keep reads for 30 days. In Sheboygan, Wisconsin, the mayor told FOX6 a Flock sales rep offered to sell the city five years of speed and movement data.

A contract can set a much longer time. The Inspector General for Los Angeles police found that the department’s Flock data “is stored on Flock servers for a period of five years.”

A Flock plate reader doesn’t measure speed or send tickets. Flock’s FAQ says its cameras “do not have speed detection capabilities.” Flock also says they don’t use facial recognition, and customers can’t watch a live feed from one.

Flock Safety makes the cameras, and its customers run them. EyesOnFlock lists 1,603 transparency portals (Oct 14, 2026). Of these, 1,328 belong to police departments, 240 to sheriffs and 28 to schools or colleges.

On OpenStreetMap, 15,017 of the 116,710 Flock-tagged readers name who runs them (Nov 7, 2026). The tags name police departments on 8,864, stores on 3,294 and sheriffs on 1,152. They name cities or counties on 769, schools or colleges on 263 and HOAs or private communities on 224.

The most common are private operators (3,513), San Francisco Police Department (427), California Highway Patrol (CHP) (400) and Detroit Police Department (229).

Agencies also post who can search their reads. See look up your agency.

Portal figures and sharing lists: EyesOnFlock (CC BY-SA 4.0), from Flock Safety transparency portals.

Agencies say they use them to find stolen cars and missing people. Every car that passes is read and kept for a while, not only the ones on a list. How long, and who can search it, is up to whoever runs it.

California has its own rules for plate readers. Whoever runs one must have a use and privacy policy (California Civil Code §1798.90.51).

Police and other public agencies may share the data only with other public agencies in the state (California Civil Code §1798.90.55). SB 1013 would have made the rules stricter. It did not pass before August 31, 2026 (CalMatters).

Flock cameras are license plate readers, and 31 of the 50 states and DC have a law or rule on plate readers. These rules can limit how long reads are kept, who can search them or who may run a camera.

In 20 of them, no state law on plate readers was found. Find your state in the plate reader law table: each row gives the law and its source, checked October 25, 2026. You can also ask an agency for its plate-reader records.