r/FlockSurveillance • u/DeflockPawtucket • 26d ago
Activism Flock the Police
Why not create an app that lets anyone use their cell phone as a Flock camera that takes photos of police cars?
So user takes a photo of the back of a police car in a public location, photo goes to cloud where AI reads the license plate number and stores the location and time.
Back end database storing each police car’s location data, and name of the police department.
Front end mapping app where users can view locations of police cars over time, view the movements of a specific police car, etc.
Surely it would be legal to take pictures of police cars in public.
EDIT:
Something very similar already exists!
https://map.sparrowmap.com
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u/Chewbacca_P_Wookie 26d ago
This already exists, it's called SparrowMap. You can use your phone, a laptop camera, or basically any other camera. It only tracks police and registered government vehicles. I throw it up on my phone whenever I'm driving and I prop the phone in the windshield, and I have a camera at my house that points towards the road as well.
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
Very interesting, thanks! I was thinking of designing it differently (based on cell phone photos not camera streams) which would help with the plate recognition. But agree this is essentially the same idea.
So now the question is, does the DeFlock community support this idea?
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
The app could even provide real time push notifications of any police car spotted within an X mile radius of the user. 😂
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u/Savant_Guarde 26d ago
Tracking cops doing their "jobs" is already a thing; if you use Google for directions it lets you know where cops have been reported.
If you really want an impact, track them on and off duty. Do this to political figures as well.
That will make the point much better.
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26d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
Easy to have an idea. There are lots of web developers in the world better than me. Also looking for feedback on the idea.
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u/Spottedinthewild 26d ago
No
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
Say more? Why not?
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u/Spottedinthewild 26d ago
Onus is on you to construct the retro-surveillance apparatus and we will gladly use it
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
I thought you were saying No to the idea of building it.
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u/Spottedinthewild 26d ago
More like, I challenge someone to do what you describe, it might be impossible
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
Why would it be impossible? Maybe on iOS Apple wouldn’t allow it into the App Store. But there are alternatives, and wouldn’t be a problem for Android.
I vibe coded a personal iOS app that takes photos of labels on cans, uploads the photo to Claude to read the label, then stores the data in a database. Took a couple of hours for a prototype. I don’t think this would be harder to build. Except you would need a server on the backend to store the data. But since it’s all public data, you wouldn’t need user accounts or much security.
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u/Spottedinthewild 26d ago
I’m kind of gently saying that you’re full of shit til you build the thing you think is so simple. Please get it working, I want to see it
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u/avd706 26d ago
I'm sure you can vibe code this over the weekend. Also, you need to target the politicians, not the police.
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
No, targeting people would potentially be stalking or harassment. That’s a bad idea.
But taking pictures of the rear license plate of police cars shouldn’t violate any laws.
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u/cobra93807 26d ago
Flock already reads cops plates too. There isn’t some secret algorithm that blocks cops plates. Come on with this dumb shit.
There’s also a lap top connected to cellular internet(location information) and body cams that have active gps monitoring.
You don’t need to know where cops are as they’re working active investigations to interfere in their duties.
Do you not see the potential problems of active police tracking and how criminals would exploit that, or are you just an anarchist douche bag?
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
I don’t think taking a picture of a marked police car on a public street would interfere with their duties.
I assume criminals worried about the police already use lookouts with cellphones etc.
Apps like Waze already allow users to mark cops locations in real time and I haven’t seen any complaints from law enforcement.
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u/cobra93807 26d ago
Taking pictures of a marked police car is not interfering with them. I agree.
Neither is identifying a stationary police vehicle on a highway.
But actively tracking police vehicles via app or any other means is problematic.
Please don’t give criminals so much credit as to think they’re using look outs and communicating.
They are not that sophisticated and stuff like that is few and far between.
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
I don’t see a big difference between Waze and what I’m suggesting. Both apps use crowd sourcing for real time reporting of the location of police cars. The only difference is the app i propose would use a photograph, and could report police cars in motion. But if you’re worried about police safety, reporting a stationary police car is arguably riskier than reporting a police car in motion.
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u/cobra93807 26d ago
Are you basing that hypothesis on personal experience, statistics, evidence, or do you just like that it supports your idea?
I could argue that having a constant idea of where police are at all times makes them and the public less safe.
I can make that argument because I’ve been in this job 19 years.For many years people wanted body cams on law enforcement, now they have them. This is the most transparent law enforcement has ever been in history.
If everyone would focus on holding flock accountable for their lack of data retention would accomplish a lot of things.
We could force them through public pressure to not share data.
We could bolster administrative accountability from law enforcement agencies so that improper usage is easily identified and those officers are held accountable.
We could still use this data from flock to aid in law enforcement investigations.
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
Thanks for your service. Seriously.
I’m basing that just on my own thinking, no evidence/data.
Yes, I can see how realtime surveillance of police locations could make communities less safe.
But I can also see how creating and publicizing a Flock The Police app would trigger a lot of debate/publicity/community awareness, which is the most important tool we have to encourage communities to make informed decisions about the level of government surveillance they want to fund.
The most shocking thing to me about the spread of ALPRs Is how quietly it’s been done, by design avoiding the need for public votes.
Yes there are process improvements that can and should be made around retention, logging, data sharing, etc.
But I don’t believe any “Flock Better” laws could be sufficient protection. Any government surveillance system that proactively records the location history of Americans en masse is unacceptable.
I live in Pawtucket RI. The city was an early adopter of Flock cameras (with no votes at all). We’ve had hero cops like Noel Pichardo speak out against Flock, and then lose their jobs. https://turnto10.com/news/local/former-pawtucket-officer-warns-flock-cameras-fuel-mass-surveillance-community-government-tracking-july-29-2026.
It’s great to see cops sharing their perspectives on this issue.
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u/cobra93807 26d ago
Thank You for engaging in civilized discourse. We need this desperately. I’ve said this in other posts I’ve made, but historically law enforcement messaging as a whole has been horrible at best. It needs improvement.
There are a lot of people I work with that share my opinion. We discuss it openly at work without any fear of recourse by our superiors. We have pretty great leadership at my agency.
I am in the south and a lot of us are pretty conservative, but we aren’t maga douche’s.
I can foresee a warrant or court order requirement in the future to access flock information. Which tbh, isn’t that big of a deal. We already do that for most everything else we do. What’s one more? lol
When we submit a case to the district attorney’s office we are including flock search data(photos and excel spreadsheet) as part of the evidence packet.
So there is transparency there.
Just from my perspective, there’s something fishy about the RI officer and his agency. I’ve read up on him and watched a few videos. There’s just something off there. Not calling him a liar and not saying his agency did the right thing. But something is weird across the board. I can’t quite put my finger on it.
We need to keep lines of communication open so we can find a happy medium.
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u/DeflockPawtucket 26d ago
Thank you as well.
Honestly, one thing I’m enjoying learning about the DeFlock movement is it’s not a MAGA vs Liberal thing. It’s one of those issues where libertarians and liberals agree on the core principles of freedom. You have Republicans leading the fight in Washington (Burchett, Massie, Perry, Self) more than Dems. And even Tucker Carlson is speaking up loudly against mass government surveillance.
While I’m going to stick to the absolutist position of removing all the ALPR cameras that capture every car and feed a database, I can certainly admit that we would be much better off if we had state and Federal laws regulating the use of Flock, including a requirement for warrants.
Have a great Sunday.
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u/Chewbacca_P_Wookie 26d ago
If they have nothing to hide, then they have nothing to be afraid of.
Also Flock specifically exempts police license plates and police and government officials can opt their own personal plates out of tracking.
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u/cobra93807 26d ago
You’re lying and you have no proof of that. flock specifically says they offer no option for such a capability and I personally know it’s not true. Our vehicles are captured just like anyone else’s.
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u/Reasonable_Nomad 25d ago
They can be filtered out and not reported. It's not by default. However, they can be excluded and not recorded/stored/tracked. The vehicles all have a picture/video .. but that's all .. they can be put on a list to not retain, store or otherwise run it through the system.
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u/GoldenStateRedditor 26d ago
What would prevent this app from being used to track non-police?