Flock Safety, one of the largest US makers of AI-powered automatic licence plate reader cameras, is facing a growing backlash that has included the sabotage of cameras in cities such as Houston, plus incidents in Minnesota, California and Georgia. While the company and law enforcement supporters say the roughly 100,000 cameras deployed across more than 7,000 US communities have improved safety and crime-solving rates, critics argue the system's vast interconnected database allows overly broad surveillance of ordinary people's movements, raising civil liberties concerns amid low public trust in institutions.

BBC-obtained records from Houston show how far camera-network searches have expanded: a typical licence plate lookup by one school district searched about 270 camera networks in April 2024, nearly doubling to 500 by April 2025, with 20% of searches spanning more than 6,000 networks by April 2026. Houston's METRO Transit Authority owns just 35 cameras but can access roughly 20,000 devices through Flock's shared network, reaching as far as New York state. Documented misuse cases have fuelled concern, including a Kentucky police officer charged after using Flock to track his ex-partner over 2,000 times, and worries that police may use the system to bypass the warrants normally required for property or phone searches.