By ANNIKA OLSEN
Los Alamos

Flock Cameras are popping up all over the nation, and Los Alamos County is no exception, but is this a trend we want to be a part of? Or are these cameras causing more harm than they’re stopping?

You may be familiar with regular traffic light cameras. The kind that snap a photo of you running a red light or committing some other type of traffic violation, then send you a fine in the mail. Not everyone’s favorite system, but generally considered culturally acceptable, right? You could be forgiven for assuming the Flock cameras that our county has put up at the intersections of Diamond and Canyon, Trinity and Canyon, and on NM 502 by the airport do the same, but no, Flock Cameras are much more… “intelligent”.

The Associated Press explains how Flock Cameras can “…Identify a car’s make, model, color, dents, roof racks, window stickers and even a dog in a truck bed.” In other words, they can gather and store distinctive, identifying data on every driver and passenger in every car they see. Considering that the cameras in Los Alamos are placed on the busiest roads and intersections, they probably already have data on almost every Los Alamos resident.

Now, most of us are on the internet, most of us have a lot of data that’s public record, so why is this so different? Flock Safety, the company that creates these cameras, says that the data Flock cameras gather helps solve 10% of all reported crime in the U.S., isn’t that a good thing? Well, yes, but solving crimes is not the only thing they use that data for. Also, Flock Safety is not the only entity to have access to that data.

Just recently in Skagit County, Washington, a judge ruled that all the data collected by Flock Cameras is public record and available to anyone who requests it. How many of us have people who we don’t want to know our current address? Or the faces of our kids? Cambridge Analytica notes that over a dozen police officers have already been arrested for using Flock Cameras to stalk ex-partners, potential romantic partners, and more across the U.S. The same article notes how in the state of Georgia alone, Flock Cameras used for school residency checks have led to 375 warrantless searches.

The danger doesn’t end with private citizens or local municipalities misusing this technology either. NPR reports that sanctuary cities and states have learned that U.S. federal agencies, including border patrol, have accessed and used the data from their Flock Cameras in the current administration’s ongoing immigration crackdown. These cities and states did not know what had happened until after their data had been used in immigration investigations.

Flock Safety not only allowed, but encouraged this backdoor access, simply stating that the company made changes over the last year to “strengthen sharing controls, oversight and audit capabilities within the system”.

If so many people have access to data from Flock Cameras, what does this mean for our LANL employees? Most of the cars passing through the Diamond and Canyon intersection, Trinity and Canyon intersection, and down NM 502 by the airport are LANL employees, many of them with clearances. If information regarding the make, model, and year of their cars; bumper stickers that indicate personal interests; and even their addresses become available in the public record, what does that mean for their safety? The safety of their families? Even the safety of their work?

Flock Safety is our era’s digital “Big Brother”, and their cameras are a safety risk more than they are a safeguard for our community. Deflock.org, a crowdsourced map documenting over 100,000 camera locations in the U.S. notes that 71 cities have either ended their contract with Flock Safety or deactivated their Flock Cameras since the beginning of 2025. Los Alamos county should join this number. Flock Cameras are not safe for our community.

To see the location of the cameras in Los Alamos and across the country, check out Deflock.org.