Alpharetta, an affluent suburb of Atlanta, Georgia, has a population of approximately 67,000 residents and about 120 local police officers. The city also has dozens of license plate reader cameras operated by Flock Safety, a growing but increasingly controversial surveillance company that collects vehicle and license plate data that law enforcement can search.
Data collected by Flock Safety cameras is available to more than 2,000 police departments, universities, airports, and government agencies nationwide, according to WIRED’s review of records obtained through a public records request. The participating organizations range from Morehouse College to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The network also includes Medicare fraud investigators in Illinois, a drug task force in east-central Missouri, and inspectors general at federal agencies.
In return, the Alpharetta Police Department receives Flock data from more than 1,300 organizations, including the Whitley County Prosecutor’s Office in Indiana and the Genesee County Metropolitan Police Department in Michigan.
WIRED reports that the Alpharetta Police Department, where an officer resigned on August 5 following the alleged misuse of Flock technology, also exchanges data with agencies that have faced similar incidents involving police surveillance systems. Those agencies include the Bibb County Sheriff’s Department, the Savannah Police Department, and the Dallas Police Department.
Alpharetta’s Flock data-sharing network has expanded significantly over the past year. Since June 2025, the number of organizations receiving data from the Alpharetta Police Department has increased by approximately 42 percent, while the number of organizations transmitting data has grown by about 125 percent. Public records obtained from other cities show that Alpharetta is not alone in maintaining a large and complex surveillance network, illustrating how widespread Flock Safety’s interconnected license plate reader system has become.
One of Flock Safety’s primary selling points is its nationwide customer network. Most, but not all, participating organizations are law enforcement agencies. When a suspected criminal travels across city, county, or state lines, Flock says its law enforcement network can help agencies continue tracking relevant vehicle data across jurisdictions.
Data sharing among government agencies is not new. Police departments have long shared information from automatic license plate readers, or ALPRs, with other agencies. Regional fusion centers also centralize intelligence and resources from law enforcement agencies. Police can share information with their local High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area, or HIDTA, program as well. According to a memorandum obtained by WIRED, Alpharetta police agreed to participate in that type of sharing in 2025.
HIDTA is a public program funded by the federal government. Flock Safety, by contrast, is a private company that operates a vast, interconnected ALPR network governed by policies and restrictions that can vary from one city to another. If police departments do not carefully monitor data requests and sharing settings in the Flock interface, they may unintentionally become part of a surveillance network far larger than they realize.
That dynamic could help explain how Alpharetta residents and visitors became part of a data-sharing network spanning more than 2,300 organizations. How does such an extensive network develop?
Setting Boundaries for Flock Data Sharing
To understand how a city such as Alpharetta can create a large-scale Flock data-sharing network, it is important to examine how the company’s administrative interface works.
WIRED analyzed files hosted on Flock Safety’s website. The files are delivered through a login page and can be accessed by anyone who reads them. Some of the code reviewed by WIRED appears to show what Flock administrators can see in the platform, including data-sharing and configuration settings.
Administrators can automatically share an agency’s Flock data with organizations within a customized geographic scope, throughout their home state, or across one or more additional states. They can also select specific organizations with which to share data.
Administrators may further restrict the types of information other organizations can access, including live and archived camera footage. They can also limit which organizations are allowed to request data. For example, access can be restricted to organizations located in the same state or within a 50-mile radius.
Source: www.wired.com