Florida's Flock Camera Ban Barely Scratches Surveillance Surface

Automated license plate readers like Flock cameras have been quietly appearing on roadsides all over the U.S.

Florida is no exception: Over the past several years, law enforcement agencies across Florida have signed contracts with Flock Safety , one of the largest purveyors of these technologies. Crowdsourced mapping projects currently show nearly 10,000 cameras in Florida, with concentrations around major metropolitan areas. This is likely an undercounting, as these are the units observed by the public, not an official tally.

But in the summer of 2026, reports of widespread abuse of this technology - both in Florida and nationwide - began to surface.

In late August, Florida banned Flock cameras from state highways . But questions about these technologies, the networks they link to and the safeguards surrounding them remain.

As a Florida-based economist who has spent the past 15 years working at the intersection of economics, politics , surveillance and civil liberties , I think such conversations are long overdue.

Improving technology

Automated license plate readers are not a new technology. Often mounted on patrol cars, these have been used to capture license plate information since the 1990s .

But the current version of this technology goes well beyond an officer looking up a plate number. According to Florida Department of Law Enforcement guidelines, readings from these devices potentially contain not only a plate number , but also images of a vehicle's license plate, date and time information and geographic location.

Companies like Flock allow users to conduct searches based on characteristics like vehicle make, model and color, as well as other distinctive vehicle features like dents and stickers . So even though these technologies generally do not contain the vehicle owner's name or other personal information, the data they collect can easily be used to find that information by running queries in other systems, such as Florida's driver-and-vehicle database .

The use of automated license plate readers has also expanded significantly in scope. Since the early 2000s, Florida agencies have used them to identify and track stolen vehicles and find wanted or missing persons. For example, they can be used after an Amber alert about a missing child or a silver alert about a missing senior citizen is issued.

But more recently law enforcement has used these readers for immigration-related searches and tracking drivers' movements over time. Data is often shared or accessed across jurisdictions.

These broader uses, combined with cases of misuse - for example, repeated searches for former romantic partners , false investigative rationales and off-duty searches - have led to serious questions about privacy, safety, government overreach and accountability.

Networks of law enforcement

This widening in scope is related to perhaps the least understood aspect of the current automated license plate reader technology: the network to which these devices are connected .

The existence of thousands of cameras reveals only a partial view of the broader surveillance apparatus.

For example, while the St. Petersburg Police Department reportedly operates only about 50 Flock cameras, its officers can search data collected by Flock cameras operated by more than 1,000 other agencies nationwide - from Florida Fish and Wildlife to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service .

In fact, Florida law encourages information sharing between law enforcement and other government agencies.

With access to this network of cameras, law enforcement agencies don't need to happen upon a car to conduct a search. Authorized users can potentially reconstruct where a car has been and when across multiple jurisdictions - regardless of whether the vehicle is possibly connected to a crime.

While Flock says it doesn't partner directly with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Community News Collaborative has documented evidence that Florida officials have used Flock data repeatedly for immigration-related searches .

Guidelines, not laws

Under Florida statute, license plate records, images and other related data collected by automated readers are subject to the state's record retention schedule. This means agencies can retain records as long as they are possibly valuable to law enforcement, but generally no longer than three years after they're recorded.

There are exceptions, however. This three-year rule may be superseded if the records are "to be retained under another record series." For example, data could be retained longer if it's part of an active criminal investigation.

In 2024 the Florida Department of Law Enforcement revised its guidelines to recommend that agencies using these technologies adopt policies governing the operation and use of these readers. Suggested guidelines include allowing access based on an employee's role and developing parameters related to legitimate use of data, record dissemination, controls against unauthorized disclosure and maintaining logs of searches.

But these are guidelines, not laws. To require specific policies or changes, state lawmakers would need to step in. Florida does not currently have comprehensive statutes that regulate how law enforcement agencies or officers may use license plate databases.

While data collection and sharing between government agencies is broad, opportunities for public scrutiny of these contracts and adopted guidelines for data collection and use are severely limited.

Images and data collected via automated license plate readers that contain or provide personally identifying information is confidential and exempt from Florida's generally broad public records laws. Public awareness of many of the uses and abuses of this technology is largely the result of dedicated, time-consuming work by journalists and watchdog groups. By requesting and analyzing records of adjacent nonconfidential documents, such as internal memos and disciplinary files, they have pieced together information about how law enforcement is using these technologies.

Problem solved?

Many people welcomed the announcement by the Florida Department of Transportation that it was revoking license plate reader permits for units installed on state highways.

But this represents the removal of a subset of cameras, not an immediate, systemic change. Florida did not ban these cameras statewide . These license plate readers - and the systems to which they connect - are still operating on municipal and county roads , and they remain in use by homeowner's associations and other private property owners.

Given current pushback from the public, legislators across the country are feeling pressure to create or amend laws governing these technologies. From Florida and California to Connecticut and Texas , lawmakers in red and blue states are rolling out a host of new guidelines and policies related to Flock cameras and similar technologies.

But in my research I've found that policymakers often face strong incentives to adopt, and continue using, technologies that allow them to claim they're tough on crime. In fact, some South Florida mayors are already pushing back against DeSantis' restriction of Flock cameras. Policymakers also face intense lobbying pressure from Flock and other technology companies to keep using their products and systems.

When it comes to surveillance oversight, policymakers often make large announcements or publicly commit to increasing accountability . But the devil is in the details. Statements about accountability or policy changes may look significant on the surface but lack substance. The real question is whether these policies are more effective than they are performative. For example, will the removal of Flock cameras from Florida highways meaningfully change how remaining cameras operate? No. The policy does, however, help policymakers avoid blame in the event of a data leak or another incident of abuse.

Zooming out

Floridians aren't the only ones considering the implications of the widespread use of license plate readers and their integrated networks. Across the U.S., lawmakers and ordinary citizens are questioning the marked expansion in the scale and scope of government surveillance and asking why safeguards are only now being seriously considered.

Florida's widespread data collection, permissive statutes related to data retention and sharing, and lack of preemptive safeguards and oversight informs a much broader conversation about surveillance, privacy and government accountability. Removing Flock cameras from the state highways was just a conversation starter - there's much more to discuss.

Abigail Hall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.