What the Flock? A look at local automated license plate readers

“I can’t go grocery shopping without passing six or seven ALPR cameras,” said Chester, N.Y. resident Christine Maurer.

The Village of Chester has 18 automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, and the Town of Chester has 11, two of which are mounted on police cars. Most neighboring towns have them as well: The Town and Village of Goshen have about 14 combined, and the Town of Warwick has 10.

The cameras automatically scan license plates as cars pass them, creating a database that police departments can search to see if a vehicle has passed through. Most are cloud-based and retain the data for about 30 days.

Local police say that ALPR use is policy driven, and that the cameras have been fundamental in solving crimes and finding missing persons.

“If you were, I hate to say it, the victim of a serious crime, believe me: You’re going to want us to utilize every tool we have in our tool belt,” said Town of Goshen Police Chief James Post. For his police department, ALPR cameras are “just another tool in our tool belt.”

Some residents, however, think ALPR cameras violate their right to privacy.

“If the police have reason to think I’ve committed a crime, go ahead and investigate me. Get a warrant when one is needed. Follow the evidence. That’s how a free country is supposed to work,” said Maurer, a retired CNBC journalist who is active in local Facebook groups about cameras and surveillance in town, and who ran for Chester Town Board in 2025.

“But I reject the idea,” she added, “that the movements of innocent people should be recorded just because one of us might eventually do something wrong.”

Newburgh ends Flock contract

Flock Safety is the country’s most widely used ALPR camera. It’s also the most controversial.

What differentiates Flock from other ALPR surveillance systems is its size and data sharing capabilities. Approximately 40 percent of police agencies in the country use Flock – 75 percent of which opt to share their data with other agencies across the country, according to reporting from NPR.

On top of collecting license plate information, Flock cameras also collect a vehicle’s make, model, color and other identifying characteristics such as bumper stickers and accessories.

“So you can’t leave your house and go to California without them knowing where you stop, what you did. You’re being watched all the time,” said Maurer. “They’re building a whole mosaic of your life.”

Last Monday on Sept. 28, Newburgh’s City Council voted to end its approximately $400,000 contract with Flock after using the surveillance system for two years. The city’s resolution to cut ties with Flock notes “substantial concerns regarding access to and sharing of locally collected ALPR information across jurisdictions,” including investigations into “immigration enforcement, reproductive health care and individuals participating in constitutionally protected political activity.”

“The City Council has determined that the continued use of Flock Safety technology is no longer consistent with City’s policy priorities regarding privacy, civil liberties, public accountability, and community trust.”

ALPRs in town

Many agencies installed ALPR cameras in 2024 after receiving state funding via New York State’s Law Enforcement Technology (LETECH) Grant, which awarded $127 million to 378 law enforcement agencies across the state. Applications for a second round of LETECH funding, totaling an additional $75 million, just closed last month on Sept. 6.

The Village of Goshen’s ALPR system, for example, was funded entirely by the 2024 grant. The village received $133,000 from the state, $108,660 of which was spent on a five-year contract for five Verkada cameras.

Verkada and Genetec – two Flock competitors used by local agencies – both have much tighter sharing capabilities; neither offer access to a nationwide database with participating agencies the way Flock does.

The Villages of Goshen and Monroe, for example, both use Verkada cameras and cannot automatically access one another’s data. If Goshen’s police department wanted to check a plate in Monroe, “I would have to contact Monroe. I would have to have an official police reason,” explained Village of Goshen Police Chief Ryan Rich. “And I would need permission from them. Everything is governed by policy, you know? I can’t just log into their system and start looking at people’s plates. There’s got to be an official public safety purpose to it.”

If police departments that use Genetec want to share their data, they must make individual partnerships with other agencies. The Town of Goshen has Genetec cameras, and only partnered to share its data with Hudson Valley Crime Analysis Center, according to Police Chief James Post.

The ALPR cameras operated by law enforcement agencies – Flock included – do not sell data to third party vendors. “Just because your license plate hits in Goshen 100 times a day near the Burger King, for example,” Post said, “that doesn’t mean you’re going to start getting Burger King ads on your phone.”

Crimes, traffic and more local use

Police departments across the area utilize their ALPR systems in a variety of ways.

The Town of Warwick’s Flock records show that plates scanned by its readers were used to investigate traffic infractions, drugs and narcotics, missing persons, larcenies and other crimes.

The Village of Monroe Police Chief Darwin Guzman said his department primarily uses their cameras for criminal investigations – burglaries, sexual assault, violent crimes, property crimes – and occasionally to find missing or endangered persons. His department does not use its cameras for traffic enforcement or infractions.

In the Town of Goshen, “we had an organized theft ring from New Jersey come up over the course of a couple of weeks and used trickery to steal a $100,000 from a local car dealer,” said Chief Post. “And we were lucky – if we didn’t have our one camera in place, we never would have caught ‘em.”

The vehicle, stolen from Healey Brothers, was recovered in the Bronx and arrests are pending.

In the Village of Goshen, “we use them for everything from criminal investigations to helping people,” said Rich, the village’s police chief. A few weeks ago, his department helped an out-of-towner find her car; she forgot which street she had parked it on and police officers were able to help her locate it by running her license plate through the ALPR system.

Rich said his department also uses cameras to manage traffic flow. While the Village of Goshen is home to only about 6,000 residents, Rich said they see about 30,000 people traveling through each day between the government buildings and courts, local events and the crossing of major state roadways.

“I really have a duty to protect people and keep traffic moving, and I can tell you honestly that these cameras and LPRs help me do that. It’s another layer of security. It’s just another tool to really enhance law enforcement,” Rich said.

“And I think that if something happened and I didn’t have them, it would be more like: ‘Chief, why don’t you have cameras in today’s day? Why don’t you have this technology?’”

Surveillance vs. safety

Privacy is just one of many concerns from those who oppose ALPR cameras. Police misuse of ALPR cameras has made headlines nationwide.

An investigation by The Washington Post, for example, found that an Indianapolis police officer appeared to use Flock cameras to track vehicles used by his wife and two close personal acquaintances, searching 3,759 times over a 10-month period.

In Florida this past April, a woman was arrested – and spent 13 days in jail – after a Flock camera wrongfully identified her vehicle as a car involved in a hit-and-run.

“They surveil innocent people. And it’s like putting a GPS on every single car. They track and trace you. They know everywhere you go. They build up a pattern of what you do on your daily life,” said Maurer.

“And getting back to the Fourth Amendment – it wasn’t written because our founders hated law enforcement. It was written because they understood human nature and government power, you know? They knew that authority needs boundaries, and that free people should not surrender those boundaries merely because those currently exercising the authority promise to use it responsibly.”

Take our survey

Do you want ALPR cameras in your town? Take our survey online at surveymonkey.com/r/alpr

Tracking cameras down

When reporting this story, our newsroom started with deflock.org – a website where anyone can report a suspected ALPR camera, pinning it on a map. Approximately 14 municipalities in our newspapers’ coverage area were flagged on the website.

We submitted public records requests to all 14 to confirm the alleged cameras, and found that 10 of them did have automated license plate readers, though the locations on deflock.org were not necessarily accurate.

Of those 10, three have contracts with Flock: the Town of Warwick, the Town of Woodbury and the Township of Sparta, N.J. Records showed that the Village of Woodbury gave the town permission to place Flock cameras within its borders.

Our reporting found the following...

Village of Chester, NY: 18 ALPRs, hosted by Genetec, Leonardo and Verkada

Town of Chester, NY: 11 ALPR hosted by Verkada

Village of Goshen, NY: 5 ALPRs, hosted by Verkada

*Town of Goshen, NY: 9 ALPRs, hosted by Genetec

Town of Warwick, NY: 10 ALPRs, hosted by Flock

Town and Village of Woodbury, NY: 12 ALPRs, hosted by Flock

Village of Monroe, NY: 12 ALPRs, hosted by Verkada

Township of Sparta, NJ: 12 ALPRs, hosted by Flock

Township of Newton, NJ: 7 ALPRs, hosted by SAFEFLEET and NJSnap

* The Town of Goshen’s police chief confirmed with our reporter that the police department has “about nine” Genetec cameras. Despite this, in response to a FOIL request, the Goshen Town Clerk’s office certified it does not possess any records that identify the vendor and number of ALPR cameras, general camera locations or installation dates.