Flock Needs the Most Detailed Map of Its Cameras Taken Down

Amid mounting issues about its sprawling surveillance digital camera community, Flock Security instructed the press this summer season that it operates more than 120,000 cameras nationwide.

But a brand new map revealed Wednesday by a cybersecurity researcher reveals Flock’s nationwide attain is even greater. Based on location coordinates from Flock’s personal database, the map exhibits greater than 170,000 cameras, plus greater than 130,000 accompanying devices that play a component within the firm’s expansive American surveillance community.

Joshua Michael’s Flock Surveillance Map highlights the places of what he says are 300,000 Flock surveillance units unfold throughout the nation. His findings — which had been cited in Wednesday’s Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing on Flock — differ from current maps of Flock’s automated license plate readers in scope and methodology.

“These cameras kind a nationwide surveillance community that tracks the place everybody drives.”

Unlike crowd-sourced tasks corresponding to DeFlock, that are constructed on places submitted by customers, the Flock Surveillance Map depends on location knowledge culled from a snapshot, archived by Michael in December 2025, of Flock’s personal data. In addition to cameras, it maps supplemental units — together with 27,000 acoustic detection units, in addition to networking tools that integrates third-party cameras — as an example the size of Flock’s surveillance internet.

“These cameras kind a nationwide surveillance community that tracks the place everybody drives,” Michael instructed The Intercept, “so international nations don’t have to ship spies to hurt our nation. They can merely watch the place our troopers, federal brokers, and politicians go.”

The Intercept visited six random Arizona places on Michael’s map; every location had a Flock digital camera current on the indicated coordinates.

The Flock Surveillance Map additionally color-codes every Flock system in keeping with its mannequin — exhibiting, as an illustration, whether or not the system is a Flock digital camera, referred to as a Falcon, or an accompanying processing unit referred to as a Picard. (Flock didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.)

The accompanying searchable dataset table additionally lists every digital camera’s particular person title, as outlined in Flock’s database, which generally features a road handle and generally different figuring out traits. A digital camera with the title “FBI Pilot Camera,” for instance, is proven to be situated on the J. Edgar Hoover Building — the FBI headquarters in Washington.

The map illustrates Flock’s nationwide unfold, but in addition its clustering in sure areas. For instance, 860 Flock units look like concentrated simply outdoors Chicago O’Hare International Airport, on the Rosemont Public Safety Department, which supplies police, fireplace, and emergency medical providers within the Chicago suburb.

Numerous Flock cameras look like put in inside detention facilities. A digital camera titled “C-F-23 FOXTROT MALE HOLDING 2/SHOWERS” seems on the coordinates of the Silverdale Detention Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.

In November 2025, Michael found a novel option to establish the placement of Flock’s units. Trawling the corporate’s web site, he realized that Flock’s servers had been publicly leaking knowledge within the type of an entry token that could possibly be acquired without having to log in. With that token, Michael mentioned he might question ArcGIS, a third-party geographic data system platform utilized by Flock, to retrieve the places of Flock units.

Michael instructed The Intercept he promptly contacted Flock and described his findings. As Michael wrote in his preliminary electronic mail to Flock on November 13, 2025: “all testing was strictly non-intrusive, restricted to open unauthenticated endpoints, and didn’t contain bypassing authentication, modifying knowledge, or invoking any billable ArcGIS or Google operations.” Michael mentioned he didn’t obtain a reply, so he adopted up with Flock the subsequent day, and a 3rd time a number of days later.

After his third try to tell Flock of the found vulnerability, Michael acquired a reply from a Flock that mentioned, “Thank you for the findings. We are internally triaging them and can attain again out with subsequent steps quickly.”

Michael mentioned he by no means heard again about it from Flock.

In December 2025, Michael downloaded the Flock system location knowledge, and in January wrote an in-depth technical blog post about what he had discovered. After Michael’s publish, it seems that Flock fastened the vulnerability.

Despite being alerted of Michael’s findings in November 2025, Flock revealed its personal blog post the next January saying it hadn’t had any knowledge breaches. “Flock has by no means been hacked, and there has not been a leak of Flock data,” the corporate claimed. “Flock Safety’s cloud platform has by no means skilled a knowledge breach.”

The Atlanta-based startup has confronted mounting criticism for its practices and lack of transparency in current months. An American Civil Liberties Union report discovered “a sample of Flock often deceptive and even mendacity about its trade practices, security document, dedication to privateness, and efforts to guard susceptible populations.”

Michael instructed The Intercept that Flock’s current claims about its knowledge safety document don’t mirror actuality. Flock has publicly claimed a number of occasions that the corporate has by no means skilled a knowledge breach, “and this was after I pulled their database of units.”

“That leaves two prospects,” he mentioned. “Either they knew and selected to not disclose it for concern of unhealthy press, or they didn’t know I exfiltrated the info in any respect. The first is a transparency failure. The second is a detection failure with nationwide safety implications.”

On Thursday, Michael was notified that Doppel, which describes itself as an “AI-native social engineering protection platfom,” filed a trademark infringement criticism concerning his website, claiming to be engaged on Flock’s behalf. Doppel says that the positioning is utilizing the trademark “FLOCK SAFETY” with out authorization, which “could trigger buyer confusion / hurt.” Doppel requested the positioning be taken down.

When he posted the Flock Surveillance Map, Michael included a pop-up disclaimer saying that the positioning is “not affiliated with or endorsed by Flock.”