Hackers from the collective stegan0gram physically removed a Flock Safety camera and successfully accessed its encrypted data, revealing new details about the surveillance system's capabilities. The breach, shared with 404 Media and WIRED, demonstrates that the camera's claimed security protections were circumvented, allowing the hackers to recover stored files and an encryption key that unlocked thousands of vehicle detections. This disclosure raises significant questions about the security and oversight of a surveillance network that has expanded nationwide.

The recovered camera had captured over 1.6 million images and contained software that explicitly detects not only vehicles and licence plates but also people, bicycles, bumper stickers, and other details such as patches on motorcyclists' saddlebags. In Alpharetta, Georgia, Flock camera records were found to be accessible to more than 2,000 agencies nationwide, including police departments, colleges, and airports. The system has attracted controversy following reports that local police performed lookups on behalf of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in areas that banned such cooperation, and that an officer used the network to search for a woman who self-administered an abortion. These revelations have prompted growing community resistance, with some towns abandoning Flock cameras entirely.