Agency record
A location that came directly from a government agency—such as an inventory, deployment list, map, or contract attachment. If the agency gave us an address and we turned it into map coordinates, we say so.
Washington surveillance transparency
Are they watching?
Flock Blocking pulls scattered public records, open maps, utility-locate tickets, and field observations into one place so you can see what's been documented—and how sure we are about it.
No plate lookup. We don't claim more than the evidence can support.
—estimated installation sites
—mapped evidence records
—sites backed by multiple sources
—records tied to Flock
—locations from agency records
—WA agencies in the ALPR registry
Live research map
What we've found.
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What you're seeing: the default map groups records that very likely describe the same installation. One site can contain more than one camera, so this isn't a camera count. Switch to individual evidence records if you want to see the source material behind each point.
Methodology
How sure are we?
Field confirmed
A location backed by direct observation or a geotagged field photo. It tells us the equipment was there on that date; it doesn't prove it stayed there or stayed active forever.
811 installation candidate
A public utility-locate record tied to Flock installation work. That tells us work was planned or carried out there; it doesn't prove a camera is there or active today.
Crowd mapped
A camera mapped by OpenStreetMap/DeFlock contributors. These points are often very precise, but they're community-maintained rather than confirmed by an agency.
Record derived
A location pulled from a released public record but not yet strongly corroborated. We show it, but we don't treat it like a confirmed primary location.
Other
Useful evidence that doesn't fit one of the stronger categories yet. We'd rather label it honestly than quietly upgrade it—or make it disappear.
How sites are grouped: when different sources appear to describe the same installation, we group them conservatively while keeping every original evidence record underneath. We don't merge two records just because they're nearby. And one installation site can contain several cameras, so the number of sites is not the number of devices.
One important boundary: Flock Blocking is here to document surveillance infrastructure. It isn't a guide to damaging, disabling, evading, or interfering with equipment.
News & developments
What changed outside the map.
Ban Flock Act proposes restrictions on federal ALPR use and funding
Sanders, Ocasio-Cortez, and Merkley announced a proposal to restrict federal use of automatic license plate readers and their data, and limit federal funding connected to ALPR use. The House version was introduced October 1.
Proposal status: the records document introduction and committee referral. This is not an enacted nationwide camera ban.
Public records campaign
We're asking agencies directly.
— requests tracked
— with updates
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Why this exists
This shouldn't be so difficult.
These camera systems are surprisingly hard to inventory. The evidence is scattered across contracts, agency maps, utility-locate tickets, public portals, community maps, and what people can actually see on the road. Flock Blocking pulls those pieces together without pretending they're all equally strong.
The goal is simple: make surveillance transparent. We're starting in Washington, but we want to expand Flock Blocking nationwide.
Flock Blocking is an independent research project and is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Flock Safety or any other camera-system vendor.
Source status
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Automated checks sometimes fail. If a source is temporarily down, we don't throw away evidence we've already collected.