Flock Safety

Flock Safety operates an AI camera network built on automated license-plate recognition (ALPR) plus a shared law-enforcement search network. Its cameras read plates and vehicle attributes and cross-reference hot lists, letting agencies search for a vehicle across many jurisdictions. Founded in 2017 out of Y Combinator, the company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

Flock has expanded well beyond plate reading — adding gunshot detection (Raven), a data-intelligence layer called Nova (launched February 2026), and a drone-as-first-responder capability through its 2025 acquisition of Aerodome. It operates in more than 5,000 communities across 49 states and reports roughly 20 billion vehicle scans per month, with an eye toward an eventual public offering.

Flock is also at the center of a 2025 to 2026 national surveillance backlash. More than 200 cities and counties had cancelled contracts by late August 2026 over mass warrantless location tracking, a cross-jurisdiction data-sharing network (including reports of searches for immigration and abortion-related purposes), ALPR misreads causing wrongful stops, and weak public audit and consent mechanisms. Reporting in August 2026 documented 46 cases of officers accused of using Flock to track wives, girlfriends and former partners, in departments that mostly did not know. The company has since cut default data retention from 30 days to seven and required a case code before a search, though both can be overridden through an operator setting called Evidence Mode. Three members of Congress have introduced a bill barring federal purchases of such systems, and on September 24, 2026, a Senate Judiciary subcommittee chaired by Josh Hawley held a hearing on the company's "AI Surveillance Network." Flock's chief executive declined to testify, as did the heads of Axon, Motorola Solutions and Verkada, while a Florida woman told senators she spent 13 days in jail after Flock cameras misidentified her car. Flock blamed human error unrelated to its cameras.