Flock Is Fighting to Keep Its Surveillance Camera Map Online as Privacy Groups Push Back

Joshua Michael built a map that shows where Flock Security cameras are watching you. Now Flock wants it taken offline.

Michael’s Surveillance Map highlights more than 300,000 Flock surveillance devices across the United States, drawn from location coordinates in Flock’s own database. It was cited in Wednesday’s Senate Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism hearing on Flock.

The map differs from existing crowd-sourced projects like DeFlock, which rely on user-submitted locations. Michael’s version uses location data culled from a December 2025 snapshot of Flock’s records, archived by him.

The Map’s Reach

The map color-codes each device by model, showing whether it is a Flock camera (Falcon) or a processing unit (Picard). It also lists each camera’s individual name from Flock’s database, including street addresses and other identifying details.

The Intercept visited six random Arizona locations on the map and confirmed a Flock camera was present at each indicated coordinate. The map also shows:

• 27,000 acoustic detection devices
• Networking equipment integrating third-party cameras
• 860 Flock devices concentrated just outside Chicago O’Hare International Airport at the Rosemont Public Safety Department
• Numerous Flock cameras inside detention centers, including one titled “C-F-23 FOXTROT MALE HOLDING 2/SHOWERS” at the Silverdale Detention Center in Chattanooga, Tennessee
• A camera named “FBI Pilot Camera” located at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, the FBI headquarters in Washington

The Vulnerability That Made It Possible

In November 2025, Michael discovered Flock’s servers were leaking an access token through public endpoints without requiring login credentials. He contacted Flock about the vulnerability on November 13, 2025, describing his testing as strictly non-intrusive and not involving data modification.

He followed up with Flock the next day and a third time several days later. Flock replied with a message thanking him for the findings and saying it was internally triaging them.

Michael never heard back from Flock again. In December 2025, he downloaded the Flock device location data and wrote a technical blog post about it in January. After Michael’s post, it appears Flock fixed the vulnerability.

What Michael Says About Flock’s Claims

In January, Flock published its own blog post saying it had never been hacked and there had not been a leak of Flock information. The American Civil Liberties Union reported a pattern of Flock misleading or lying about its business practices, safety record, privacy commitment, and protection of vulnerable populations.

Michael said Flock’s claims about its data security record don’t reflect reality. He noted Flock has publicly claimed multiple times it has never experienced a data breach after he pulled its database of devices.

“These cameras form a nationwide surveillance network that tracks where everyone drives,” Michael told The Intercept, adding foreign nations don’t need to send spies to harm the country — they can watch where soldiers, federal agents, and politicians go.

Michael said the situation leaves two possibilities: either Flock knew and chose not to disclose the breach for fear of bad press, or it didn’t know he exfiltrated the data at all. The first possibility is a transparency failure, the second is a detection failure with national security implications.

The Trademark Complaint

On Thursday, Michael was notified that Doppel filed a trademark infringement complaint against his site, claiming to work on Flock’s behalf. Doppel says the site uses the trademark “FLOCK SAFETY” without authorization, which may cause customer confusion or harm.

Doppel requested the site be taken down.

Key Facts

• More than 120,000 cameras nationwide, per Flock’s own statement this summer
• More than 170,000 cameras and more than 130,000 accompanying devices on Michael’s map
• 300,000 Flock surveillance devices highlighted on the map
• 27,000 acoustic detection devices shown on the map
• 860 Flock devices at Rosemont Public Safety Department
• “C-F-23 FOXTROT MALE HOLDING 2/SHOWERS” at Silverdale Detention Center, Chattanooga, Tennessee
• “FBI Pilot Camera” at the J. Edgar Hoover Building, FBI headquarters in Washington

What Happens Next

Michael was notified of the complaint on Thursday. The map remains online for now.

The Senate hearing brought the map into public view. Whether that changes anything about how Flock operates is unclear.

Source material: “Flock Wants the Most Detailed Map of Its Surveillance Cameras Taken Offline,” theintercept.com.

data breach · digital rights · Flock Security · privacy · surveillance