Atlanta, Georgia — A hacker collective dismantled a Flock Safety camera, copied much of its internal software and storage, and shared the files with journalists, revealing that the company’s surveillance devices collect far more information than license plates alone.
The group, calling itself stegan0gram, provided the data to 404 Media and WIRED. Their analysis found that one camera generated about 1.6 million images from roughly 50,000 vehicles over 21 days, sometimes capturing dozens of images of the same vehicle. The software also explicitly detected people and bicycles, not just cars and license plates.
The files showed the system could isolate details such as bumper stickers, vehicle characteristics and objects carried by people. Analysts also found that one storage partition was not encrypted and contained a key that unlocked additional recorded media, raising questions about Flock’s previous claims regarding on-device protections.
Flock said the unauthorized removal and tampering of its hardware is illegal and noted that the hackers did not report the findings through its official vulnerability-disclosure process.
The disclosure comes amid growing scrutiny of Flock’s expanding national network. WIRED reported that data from some systems can be accessed by more than 2,000 agencies, while several communities have recently suspended or abandoned the technology over privacy and oversight concerns.
Boston recently said it will no longer use Flock after discovering that data from a 2025 pilot had been shared nationally despite a contractual requirement that such sharing be disabled.
The hacked camera adds a new dimension to the debate: the issue is no longer limited to who can search license plates, but also how much information the devices actually collect and how securely that data is stored.
Sources
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