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Stories & Perspectives / University of Evansville
“In this effort to attain security, independence and privacy of course were suspect.”
In modern times, it’s impossible to disappear completely. Our phones, computers, and smart watches are constantly tracking us. Now, even our cities have the tools to see where we go. Automatic license plate recognition (ALPR) is not a new technology and has been around for about 50 years. Flock cameras, and the Flock Safety program created by Garrett Langley, Paige Todd, and Matt Feury, have been around for nearly a decade.
The company started as a kitchen-table project after a series of crimes in one of the founders’ hometowns encouraged him to make affordable ALPRs that could be used in any county. Flock says its license plate readers capture license plates and vehicle characteristics. In communities, organizations like DeFlock, a national nonpartisan organization dedicated to mapping where Flock cameras are in the nation, express concerns over their privacy and civil liberties.
They’re trying to make people more aware and educated about what these cameras are, what they record, and why they believe they’re wrong.
In Vanderburgh County, there are about 50 Flock cameras around the area. Authorities opted in for the national Flock database, meaning that authorized agencies elsewhere can search the images and data Evansville has made available through the network. The claim is that this technology helps with nationwide searches, whether for a missing person or a stolen vehicle, and can solve crimes that cross state borders quicker and more efficiently. They first started using this technology in 2022, along with already using Clearview AI, a database with over 30 billion pictures of people, since 2020. On September 16th, the Evansville Police Chief requested an additional $265,000 for investigative tools, including Flock cameras, and the city council is set to vote on budget requests later this year.
Evansville is not new to AI technology, and not new to the misuse of it. In 2024, an officer was placed on suspension after it was discovered that he was using Clearview AI, a separate facial recognition system, for his own personal use (Tristate). He was then fired after this was investigated. In early 2025, the Washington Post released an article that discusses how police departments have made arrests based on AI evidence alone, collecting no further independent evidence.
Evansville was on that list, along with 14 other police departments (Washington Post). The Evansville Police Department (EPD) later disputed the claim that they used exclusively AI evidence to make an arrest, and no real public information can be found to prove that they did. On the other hand, many officers have found ALPR technology incredibly helpful when looking into especially difficult cases. Sheriff Noah Robinson explained one specific case that happened just earlier this year, saying “a woman was followed home from the casino, and a man held her at knife point and robbed her.” The man then drove away, and although the woman wasn’t positive what car he was driving, with her description they were able to identify the vehicle using Flock cameras and arrested him.
While Flock cameras were made to provide a quick and efficient way to read license plates and deter crime, they have evolved into a tool that can help solve crime that, previously, would have gone unsolved. Now, many citizens are concerned about the impact these cameras have on their privacy. Adam Carey, an administrative member of the nonpartisan and nonprofit organization called DeFlock Evansville, explicitly said that they believe “ALPRs in general are a breach of the Fourth Amendment”, which is the protection against unlawful search and seizure, and that it “essentially aligns with stalking; it makes stalking easier.” While these privacy concerns are a central part of the debate surrounding Flock, Sheriff Robinson said that the sheriff’s department and EPD have safeguards in place to prevent their officers from using these photos as independent evidence.
At the same time, however, Robinson expressed his concern as well, saying “[he] gets a little nervous about some of [the] agencies that have nationwide access to all of these [Flock] cameras”, going on to express that he “doesn’t know what safeguards [those agencies] have, so that’s where [he] gets a little bit worried.” He then told me that he and Chief Smith with EPD plan to have a meeting, concluding on whether they will remove the city from the national lookup database.
Robinson said that although “[he] thinks it was done with the best intentions,” it was still “a mistake to allow nationwide lookup in our community.” A differing view, however, comes from a member of the Evansville Police Department.
Taylor Merriss is the Special Projects Coordinator and mainly works within the community. She explained that she is a proponent of Flock Safety, despite knowing that officers in the country have misused it. She expressed that the safeguards that EPD has in place to prevent the personal use of the technology are trustworthy and secure. She, like Sheriff Robinson, explained a time that she found Flock especially helpful, saying she “remembers when Flock was first introduced, it was all about finding stolen vehicles”, until “there was a kid that was kidnapped, and all we knew was that he had gotten on a scooter-type vehicle, and that it was red”, using simple-language in the Flock database, they were “able to track the direction that the kid was going.
He was literally on the back of a moped with somebody who ended up being a sex offender as well.” They were able to locate the child within an hour.
The debate around Flock cameras doesn’t come from whether it can read a license plate. The larger questions are what information the cameras collect and where that data goes. One still image of a vehicle doesn’t provide much information, and the biggest argument that Flock has made is that the pictures are designed to focus on the license plate and the make/model of the vehicle rather than who is driving it.
For someone who has never been suspected of a crime, that information may seem insignificant, but the concern comes from those images being put together collectively. When multiple cameras capture the same car throughout the day, it can provide a much more detailed picture of where that vehicle has traveled and can potentially reveal locations associated with where a person lives, travels, what they do for work, etc., and for those opposing the technology, they wonder if having all of that information about people in the city is truly helpful, necessary, and safe.
Sheriff Robinson provided some reassurance when asked about this and said that “[they] can see exactly how many times the database has been looked at in a day”, and that there are random audits done to see how many times a specific officer has looked at the database. If it appears that they’re using it much more than they should, it’s investigated. When it comes to the national database, though, Robinson said his office could not see who at outside agencies were searching the shared data or what they were viewing.
The national database is almost a separate issue that concerns officers and opponents alike. As previously stated, Sheriff Robinson opposes the national database himself and plans to discuss the idea of removing Vanderburgh County from it. Taylor Merriss, however, finds it incredibly useful and beneficial, and spoke about how when a crime crosses state lines, it’s important that they can use the technology to get a clearer picture of what happened, stating “it would be a disservice if we didn’t look that up nationally.” The national database brings up the question of the Fourth Amendment and what is considered unlawful search.
Sheriff Robinson described Flock cameras as no different from someone “standing on a street corner and taking photos of passing cars in a public space”, but Carey argues that it changes things when suddenly other people who aren’t typically in those spaces can also see what is happening, and again, have a lot of information about where specific vehicles can typically be found. As Robinson stated before, Vanderburgh County officers cannot see who is searching their database outside of the county, and that begs the question of whether these outside officers are doing so with a valid reason.
There are no clear answers yet, despite the topic becoming a national issue, with many cities even covering and removing their own Flock cameras as they try to reach a decision. For Evansville, it becomes a much more immediate question as officials try to expand the budget for Flock in the upcoming City Council budget hearing. Sheriff Robinson said, that while at the moment he supports Flock for the community, if he “finds out that Flock Safety is lying to [him] about data retention, [he] will personally cut down the cameras [himself].”
For a resident, it’s easy to overlook a Flock camera. You pass by a few on your way to school, a friend’s house, a restaurant, and there’s no physical interaction indicating that anything has happened at all, but a picture remains. One only shows a passing car, but multiple images collected over time can show a greater amount of information that is then shared and can be searched on a national database.
Flock technology was designed to help make communities safer and to aid law enforcement in investigations that may involve vehicles. Now, communities must decide how much information they’re willing to collect in pursuit of that goal, and what safeguards should apply when that information is shared.
Evansville Police have also reported damage to Flock cameras. On September 28th, it was reported that, in total, 14 cameras around the city had been vandalized or completely removed. According to 14 News, Sgt. Anthony Aussieker, EPD public information officer, said damaging a Flock camera can lead to a felony charge. He went on to say that the issue “could probably be fixed through some education and conversation”. Amid the debate and the reported vandalism, Evansville officials have an incredibly difficult choice to make. How should Evansville weigh the cameras’ potential to help solve crimes against residents’ concerns about privacy and oversight?