Alpharetta Police Share Flock Camera Data With Over 2,000 Agencies
This digest was compiled by AI from multiple sources — links to the originals are below.
The Alpharetta Police Department in Georgia shares data from its Flock Safety license plate cameras with more than 2,000 organizations nationwide, according to public records obtained by WIRED. The network includes colleges, airports, and federal agencies, and has grown sharply since June 2025. The expansion highlights the scale of Flock's private surveillance network across the United States.
Key Facts
- Alpharetta, Georgia, a suburb of about 67,000 people, has roughly 120 police officers and hosts several dozen Flock Safety cameras.
- Data from Alpharetta's Flock cameras is accessible to more than 2,000 police departments, colleges, airports, and government agencies across the United States.
- Alpharetta receives Flock data from more than 1,300 entities, including the Whitley County, Indiana prosecutor's office and the Genesee County, Michigan Metro Police Authority.
- Since June 2025, the number of entities receiving data from Alpharetta police grew by about 42 percent, and the number sending data to them grew by about 125 percent.
- An Alpharetta police officer resigned on August 5 due to Flock misuse, and the department exchanges data with agencies that have faced similar incidents, including Bibb County Sheriff's Department, Savannah Police Department, and Dallas Police Department.
Data-Sharing Network
Alpharetta's Flock data is accessible to a wide range of organizations, from Morehouse College to Florida's Fish and Wildlife Commission. The network also includes Medicare fraud investigators in Illinois, a drug task force focused on east-central Missouri, and the inspector general of a federal agency. In return, Alpharetta receives Flock data from more than 1,300 entities, spanning from the prosecutor's office of Whitley County, Indiana, to the Metro Police Authority of Genesee County, Michigan. The Alpharetta Police Department also exchanges Flock data with several agencies that have been recently rocked by incidents of officers misusing its technology. These agencies include Georgia's Bibb County Sheriff's Department, the Savannah Police Department, and the Dallas Police Department.
Network Expansion
Alpharetta's data-sharing network has expanded tremendously over the past year. Since June 2025, the number of entities receiving data from Alpharetta police has grown by about 42 percent. The number of entities sending data to Alpharetta has grown by about 125 percent over the same period. Documents obtained via public records requests from several other cities show that Alpharetta is far from alone in having an expansive and complicated data-sharing system. This provides a potent example of how pervasive Flock's surveillance network has become.
Flock's Business Model
One of Flock's central selling points is its network of customers, mostly law enforcement agencies. Flock tells its customers that if a criminal suspect crosses city, county, or state lines, a query can prevent them from falling through the cracks. Data sharing across agencies is hardly novel; a police department can share data from its automatic license plate readers with state-run fusion centers or regional High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area programs. Alpharetta police agreed to share data with a HIDTA program in 2025, according to a memorandum of understanding obtained by WIRED. Whereas HIDTAs are federally funded public programs, Flock is a private company that manages a sprawling, interconnected ALPR network governed by rules that vary wildly from city to city.
1 source
Alpharetta Police Share Flock Camera Data With Over 2,000 Agencies
