End Flock Surveillance in Peoria, Illinois
End Flock Surveillance in Peoria, Illinois
The Issue
What is Flock:
Have you ever seen a black pole, with an oval shaped device, and solar panel attached to it while driving or walking through the city? If so, you’ve spotted one of the thousands of cameras deployed by local police departments and the private company Flock Safety across the country. The goal of these cameras is to collect images and video of every car and license plate that passes by it. They are strategically placed on major roads, intersections, on-ramps, and off-ramps to make it nearly impossible to avoid being captured by the system.
Proponents of Flock argue that these cameras help law enforcement track and solve crime more efficiently. Essentially, these cameras are advertised as a way to keep people safe. However, they also monitor average people, creating the feeling of always being watched.
To start:
The increasing presence of Flock Safety cameras in Peoria, Illinois illustrates a concerning effort to create an encompassing surveillance state. The ability for a private corporation and local law enforcement to track the movement of almost every American citizen violates basic civil liberties to privacy, freedom, and security. Specifically, Flock Safety cameras represent a blatant violation of the fourth amendment, which protects the rights of the people from unreasonable search and seizures. This violation has been justified by arguing an increase in public safety. However, as Thomas Jefferson stated in a letter to Edward Carrington:
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”
Sacrificing our fundamental rights and privacy as Americans for the promise of short-term safety is foolish, and ultimately, only leads to the destruction of both.
Flock Safety shows a lack of concern for the security of the data it collects. In a research video by Benn Jordan, over 50 vulnerabilities were identified. Jordan was able to access cameras, including live and historical footage, using a variety of techniques (including a cold war era antenna). It has also become clear that while Flock claims that their cameras are only used for vehicle recognition, they appear to also be capable of recognizing and tracking people. Jordan also found, in a separate video, how law enforcement and Flock employees would allegedly regularly access footage from public pools and gymnasiums.
Concerning points include:
Flock boasts a new shared private surveillance system, allowing companies to collect and pool intelligence on crime. Essentially, this move is a new step in the history of private intelligence gathering and the monitoring of employees through blacklist databases.
The ACLU has covered Flock's efforts to generate suspicion by aggregating data on citizens into AI algorithms to “predict” crime. In essence, certain people tagged by Flock would be assumed guilty, until proven innocent.
404Media found that Flock developed a program named nova. According to Flock themselves, “Nova integrates RMS, CAD, LPR, and public records in one platform for coordinated investigations and operations”. Essentially, Flock combines data from public records and data brokers with their data, allowing law enforcement and Flock to learn where you live, who you’re married to, audio from your 911 calls, etc. just from a license plate.
Over the past couple years multiple cases have been reported in Wisconsin, Georgia, Kansas, Florida, South Carolina, and Wisconsin again, of police officers and chiefs leveraging Flock to track both ex and current partners. Often, they’d access the cameras hundreds of times for unauthorized tracking. These are just the examples of officers that have been caught, many more are still likely using Flock for their own personal goals.
In one incident, an officer used Flock “evidence” to accuse a woman of stealing a package. With the officer stating to her: “It is locked in. There is zero doubt. I wouldn’t have come here unless I was 100% sure.” However, the woman was never even in the area. She had to use her own dashcam, map data, and doorbell video to prove she was somewhere else. It's difficult to imagine the scenario where she didn’t have evidence to prove her true location.
These points represent just the tip of the iceberg, and new issues, concerns, and legal cases are being brought up each day. Never committing a crime doesn’t protect you from invasive surveillance, and if anything, opens the door to more government crime, stalking, and false accusations.
In conclusion:
Collecting information about Americans shouldn’t be easy. Warrants exist to protect Americans, and to keep government overreach in check. Flock fails to keep law enforcement accountable, and makes it complacent, relying on a system that can and will be wrong.
Even if you trust law enforcement to use these tools to keep you safe today, with how fast new surveillance methods are being adopted to push the limit of the constitution, will you trust them in a year? A decade? The Flock issue has to be addressed now, and can start by removing their cameras from Peoria.
To view how prevalent Flock cameras have become in the area, visit https://deflock.org/.
Other relevant resources:
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup
https://www.aclu-wi.org/news/what-the-flock-police-surveillance-is-ripe-for-abuse/
143
The Issue
What is Flock:
Have you ever seen a black pole, with an oval shaped device, and solar panel attached to it while driving or walking through the city? If so, you’ve spotted one of the thousands of cameras deployed by local police departments and the private company Flock Safety across the country. The goal of these cameras is to collect images and video of every car and license plate that passes by it. They are strategically placed on major roads, intersections, on-ramps, and off-ramps to make it nearly impossible to avoid being captured by the system.
Proponents of Flock argue that these cameras help law enforcement track and solve crime more efficiently. Essentially, these cameras are advertised as a way to keep people safe. However, they also monitor average people, creating the feeling of always being watched.
To start:
The increasing presence of Flock Safety cameras in Peoria, Illinois illustrates a concerning effort to create an encompassing surveillance state. The ability for a private corporation and local law enforcement to track the movement of almost every American citizen violates basic civil liberties to privacy, freedom, and security. Specifically, Flock Safety cameras represent a blatant violation of the fourth amendment, which protects the rights of the people from unreasonable search and seizures. This violation has been justified by arguing an increase in public safety. However, as Thomas Jefferson stated in a letter to Edward Carrington:
“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.”
Sacrificing our fundamental rights and privacy as Americans for the promise of short-term safety is foolish, and ultimately, only leads to the destruction of both.
Flock Safety shows a lack of concern for the security of the data it collects. In a research video by Benn Jordan, over 50 vulnerabilities were identified. Jordan was able to access cameras, including live and historical footage, using a variety of techniques (including a cold war era antenna). It has also become clear that while Flock claims that their cameras are only used for vehicle recognition, they appear to also be capable of recognizing and tracking people. Jordan also found, in a separate video, how law enforcement and Flock employees would allegedly regularly access footage from public pools and gymnasiums.
Concerning points include:
Flock boasts a new shared private surveillance system, allowing companies to collect and pool intelligence on crime. Essentially, this move is a new step in the history of private intelligence gathering and the monitoring of employees through blacklist databases.
The ACLU has covered Flock's efforts to generate suspicion by aggregating data on citizens into AI algorithms to “predict” crime. In essence, certain people tagged by Flock would be assumed guilty, until proven innocent.
404Media found that Flock developed a program named nova. According to Flock themselves, “Nova integrates RMS, CAD, LPR, and public records in one platform for coordinated investigations and operations”. Essentially, Flock combines data from public records and data brokers with their data, allowing law enforcement and Flock to learn where you live, who you’re married to, audio from your 911 calls, etc. just from a license plate.
Over the past couple years multiple cases have been reported in Wisconsin, Georgia, Kansas, Florida, South Carolina, and Wisconsin again, of police officers and chiefs leveraging Flock to track both ex and current partners. Often, they’d access the cameras hundreds of times for unauthorized tracking. These are just the examples of officers that have been caught, many more are still likely using Flock for their own personal goals.
In one incident, an officer used Flock “evidence” to accuse a woman of stealing a package. With the officer stating to her: “It is locked in. There is zero doubt. I wouldn’t have come here unless I was 100% sure.” However, the woman was never even in the area. She had to use her own dashcam, map data, and doorbell video to prove she was somewhere else. It's difficult to imagine the scenario where she didn’t have evidence to prove her true location.
These points represent just the tip of the iceberg, and new issues, concerns, and legal cases are being brought up each day. Never committing a crime doesn’t protect you from invasive surveillance, and if anything, opens the door to more government crime, stalking, and false accusations.
In conclusion:
Collecting information about Americans shouldn’t be easy. Warrants exist to protect Americans, and to keep government overreach in check. Flock fails to keep law enforcement accountable, and makes it complacent, relying on a system that can and will be wrong.
Even if you trust law enforcement to use these tools to keep you safe today, with how fast new surveillance methods are being adopted to push the limit of the constitution, will you trust them in a year? A decade? The Flock issue has to be addressed now, and can start by removing their cameras from Peoria.
To view how prevalent Flock cameras have become in the area, visit https://deflock.org/.
Other relevant resources:
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/flock-roundup
https://www.aclu-wi.org/news/what-the-flock-police-surveillance-is-ripe-for-abuse/
143
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Petition created on April 23, 2026