Florida County Finds 11 Unclaimed Flock Cameras, Raising Privacy and Oversight Concerns

A reporter who visited a residential street in Fort Pierce found a removal notice still stapled to a utility pole even though the camera referenced in the notice was already gone. There is no public record explaining who removed it or when.

Unclaimed Devices on County Roads

St. Lucie County had recorded 52 Flock Safety cameras mounted on county roads. A recent county review uncovered 14 additional Flock devices with no permitting paperwork. Three of those 14 are assigned to the sheriff's office; officials have not explained why those units lacked permits. The remaining 11 devices have no publicly identified owner, and county staff say they cannot confirm whether those cameras are still collecting data or who, if anyone, can search what has already been recorded.

How the System Works

Atlanta-based Flock Safety says it operates more than 120,000 cameras nationwide. Each device photographs passing vehicles, captures license-plate numbers and logs the time and location of each sighting into a cloud database. Whoever controls the account can search that database — which is why a camera on a public road with no known custodian is more than a paperwork problem: it is a governance and privacy problem.

Regulatory Pushback

Florida's Department of Transportation revoked automated license-plate reader (ALPR) permits for devices on state highways in late August 2026, citing misuse and privacy concerns, and ordered affected cameras removed within 30 days. St. Lucie County commissioners went further, voting to remove Flock systems from county-controlled rights-of-way and to stop issuing new permits for the technology. Those actions do not cover devices on private property or vehicle-mounted units.

Why These 11 Cameras Matter

• Officials cannot confirm whether the devices are still active or have been disabled.
• It is unclear what data the cameras recorded or which retention policies apply.
• County staff do not know which accounts, if any, can search the recorded database entries.
• Flock spokesperson Paris Lewbel said permitting rules vary by jurisdiction and are not always required; that response does not identify device owners.
• At least one camera referenced by a removal notice was gone when reporters arrived; the notice remained with no explanation of who removed the device or when.

Pattern Across Jurisdictions

Local officials and independent investigations suggest a recurring pattern in which cameras are installed before permitting is completed. Examples include Cambridge, Massachusetts — where two Flock cameras reportedly appeared after the city had deactivated its own system — Millcreek, Utah, where a camera on municipal property lacked an identifiable installer, and the John’s Pass Bridge near St. Petersburg, where units were installed without Florida DOT approval and later removed by a Flock employee at regulators' request. A 2024 Forbes investigation also reported installations in multiple states without required permits.

Documented Misuse and the Stakes

Misuse concerns are not hypothetical. A Washington Post investigation identified at least 50 law-enforcement officials nationwide accused of using Flock systems to track people in their personal lives. In Fort Pierce, former officer Josepher Crutchfield was jailed after accessing the Flock database 382 times to monitor a former girlfriend while off duty. Those examples illustrate what unaudited, untracked access to vehicle-location data can enable.

Common-Sense Fixes

Proposed solutions are straightforward and aimed at restoring public oversight: require vendors to file public permit records before installation; require disclosure of customer identity for any camera mounted on public property; and mandate auditable access logs that record who searched what and when. Flock has said it is willing to work with local governments; county officials say that cooperation needs to be formalized in paperwork and permissions before cameras are installed, not after.