90,000 Flock cameras have quietly gone up in the US: What they track and how to check your city Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways - Flock cameras are tracking vehicles across a shared network. - AI searches, cloud security, access, and false alerts are all risks. - Residents may not know they're installed until they spot them. By the time I learned that towns all around me in upstate New York had installed Flock "Falcon" cameras, they were already tracking every passing vehicle, including mine. In most of those communities, there had been little warning and no public discussion. Also: Ring's 'Familiar Faces': Why privacy experts worry it's mass surveillance in disguise I first noticed them because of what happened in Saranac Lake, a village near me. Residents protested last spring, officials were forced to reconsider, and the village ultimately voted to cancel its contract with Flock Safety. Soon after, the cameras came down. The same can't be said for many other US towns, where Flock's AI-enabled cameras actively surveil residents without clear consent. They're everywhere and easy to miss My small town, with a population of about 11,000, has several Flock cameras. I've spotted them on utility poles beside roads and intersections I regularly drive through, but they're admittedly easy to overlook or mistake for ordinary traffic cameras. Most look like small black boxes powered by batteries or solar panels, and they're connected through cellular service rather than Wi-Fi. Flock says more than 12,000 customers use its products, while public estimates suggest roughly 90,000 Flock-branded cameras may operate in the US. Police aren't the only users. Businesses, schools, and homeowners associations can install them, too. Flock Safety software can also be integrated with cameras from partner manufacturers, such as Motorola. While