On Wednesday, an a pro-privacy account called “Orwell Day” shared a video on X-formerly-Twitter of a man discovering a Flock license plate reader embedded inside an otherwise innocent roadside speedometer. Operated by the local Sheriff’s department, the device was cleverly hidden to be undetectable to approaching road and pedestrian traffic.
“What lurks on the back of it?” the man behind the camera asks as he approaches the device. “Look at that. Someone did some custom metal fabricating and decided to put a Flock camera, a mobile one, anywhere they want to put it, in the speedometer.”
That particular unit is operated by police in Volusia County, Florida, encompassing the suburbs north of Orlando. However, it’s not unthinkable that the practice might spread to other locales as the public backlash against ALPRs grows — and it’s growing fast.
So far, the privacy advocates behind the website DeFlock.org note that 53 US cities have ended their previous ALPR contracts with Flock. (Some municipalities are turning to alternative ALPR providers like Axon.)
In cities where local leaders aren’t ready to cut the cord, however, citizens are taking matters into their own hands, sawing down Flock towers, sabotaging their solar charging panels, or paint bombing the camera’s sensors.
While that kind of direct action has forced some municipalities to reconsider their Flock contracts, others are doubling down. Now, it seems some towns are getting crafty, secreting the now-infamous surveillance devices in roadside objects to throw saboteurs off their trail.
It’s not without precedent. In 2025, the Associated Press reported that US Border Patrol officers were hiding ALPRs and other surveillance devices inside traffic barrels, allowing them to monitor thousands of drivers throughout the US for “suspicious travel patterns.”
As the AP reported at the time, the program encompassed states like Arizona, Texas, and Michigan. In many cases, hidden cameras were discovered in locations that were hundreds of miles away from the nearest border.
At the moment, the full scope of covert ALPRs in the US remains to be uncovered. But with over 95,000 of the spy gadgets and counting deployed across the country, the number of hidden cameras is surely much higher than the public is currently aware.
More on Flock: LAPD Abandons Flock Contract After Making a Horrifying Discovery
The post So Many People Are Smashing Flock’s Cameras That It’s Disguising Them Inside Other Objects appeared first on Futurism.
