Flock is trying to make sure you don't see this highly detailed map of its security cameras

Forget Big Brother because it could be a case that Flock Safety is always watching. Despite being founded in 2017, the privately held manufacturer and operator of surveillance hardware and software has been drawn into the news due to a recent boom in concerns about its automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras.

Although supposed to help the police in terms of recovering stolen vehicles or locating persons of interest, there are growing fears that normal members of the public are being unwelcomely surveilled.

This has exploded into several vigilante campaigns of Flock Safety cameras being destroyed by hackers and congressional candidates alike, all while the company maintains it's here to help.

CEO Garrett Langley has spoken out amid claims that Flock Safety cameras could be accessed or even controlled online, and as the backlash continues, a growing number of citizens are keeping track of exactly how many Flock cameras there are out in the wild.

Flock Safety camera map reveals real number of devices

Michael's map shows a much bigger number of potential surveillance devices (Flock Surveillance Map)

Created by Joshua Michael, the Flock Surveillance Map covers the entirety of the United States and claims there are some 335,701 Flock surveillance devices across the country. This seems to go against Flock's own claims, with the company telling The Washington Post in August 2026 that it operates some 120,000 cameras in the USA.

These shoebox-size cameras are said to scan roads in 6,000 communities and record around 20 billion plates every month.

A disclaimer on the site reiterates: "Independent research site presenting Joshua Michael’s cybersecurity work. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Flock Safety, Flock Group, Inc."

It's important to note that the site says there are 289,106 visible devices and 184,238 active ones.

Still, Michael's map appears to paint a different picture from what Flock Safety is telling the general public, with his research being presented in a Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing involving the company.

Whereas crowd-sourced projects like DeFlock are built on user-submitted information, Michael's Flock Surveillance Map uses location data that's drawn from a snapshot of Flock's own records.

Alongside the cameras everyone is paranoid about, Michael highlights supplemental devices that including 27,000 acoustic detection devices, alongside networking equipment that's said to use third-party cameras.

Devices are color-coded to models, indicating whether it's one of Flock's Falcon cameras or a processing unit that's referred to as a Picard.

Speaking to The Intercept, Michael highlighted his concerns about foreign interference, telling the outlet: "These cameras form a nationwide surveillance network that tracks where everyone drives. So foreign nations don’t need to send spies to harm our country. They can simply watch where our soldiers, federal agents, and politicians go."

Testing the map's accuracy, The Intercept visited six random Arizona locations that were marked on the Flock Surveillance Map and found a camera at each of them.

Speaking to UNILADTech, Michael say he created the map to "highlight the national security risks documented in my formal research paper and four vulnerability chain that's also on the website."

Flock Safety denies security vulnerability

Michael claims he created the map from leaked Flock Safety data (Flock Safety)

Michael supposedly discovered that Flock's servers were leaking access tokens in November 2025, then used a third-party geographic information system platform known as ArcGIS to locate the various devices.

He maintains he contacted Flock Safety to let those up high know about this vulnerability, with an email stating: "All testing was strictly non-intrusive, limited to open unauthenticated endpoints, and did not involve bypassing authentication, modifying data, or invoking any billable ArcGIS or Google operations."

After three attempts to highlight the issue, he says he finally got a reply reading: "Thank you for the findings. We are internally triaging them and will reach back out with next steps soon.”

A January 2025 blog post from Flock claimed it hasn't had any data breaches, adding: "Flock has never been hacked, and there has not been a leak of Flock information. Flock Safety’s cloud platform has never experienced a data breach.”

This is something Michael disputes, saying that "either they [Flock] knew and chose not to disclose it for fear of bad press, or they didn’t know I exfiltrated the data at all. The first is a transparency failure. The second is a detection failure with national security implications."

Michael says he's been contacted by Doppel, an “AI-native social engineering defense platform," being warned that the Flock Surveillance Map is a possible trademark infringement because using “FLOCK SAFETY” without authorization “may cause customer confusion / harm.” Doppel has asked for the site to be taken down, but at the time of writing, it's still live.

UNILADTech has reached out to Flock Safety for comment.