Hackers were able to access and data from a Flock Safety license plate reader camera, revealing details how the cameras track vehicles and people.
The hackers recovered an encryption key from the device, unlocking videos of thousands of vehicle detections, with the camera also detecting people, license plates, and bicycles.
Flock Safety, the company behind the cameras, denies using face recognition capabilities and states that the unauthorized tampering of their cameras is illegal, with some towns announcing plans to stop using them.
Hackers tore down a Flock Safety license plate reader camera, copied nearly all of the data stored inside it and shared the files with reporters, revealing new details how the company's cameras track vehicles and people.
404 Media reported Wednesday that the hackers, from a collective calling itself stegan0gram, recovered an encryption key stored on the device that unlocked videos of thousands of vehicle detections.
"Why just destroy them when we can reverse engineer them and find the secrets of those spying on us?" one of the hackers said.
According to the analysis, software on the camera explicitly detects people as well as vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. When it spots a person, it records where the person appears in the image and how confident it is in the detection.
The camera takes a rapid series of photos when something moves into view. A typical passing vehicle generated 28 images, though some produced more than 100.
Recovered logs covering 21 days showed the device photographed roughly 50,200 vehicles and generated 1.6 million images.
Much of the most sensitive storage on the device remained encrypted and inaccessible, the report said.
The plate detector sometimes mistook bumper stickers and other graphics for plates, in one case cropping an American flag patch on a motorcyclist's saddlebag.
404 Media found no evidence of face-recognition capabilities in the camera's software beyond default Android operating system features, which did not appear to be in use. Flock says its cameras do not perform face recognition.
"The unauthorized removal and tampering of a Flock camera is illegal," a Flock spokesperson said. The company said it received no report through its vulnerability disclosure process and did not have enough detail to assess the claims.
In early 2025, a security researcher documented flaws in a Flock camera, which the company said required physical access to the device.
Multiple people across the country have been arrested for allegedly tampering with Flock cameras, and some towns have announced plans to stop using them.
Asked Sunday aboard Air Force One police departments crediting the cameras with helping law enforcement, President Donald Trump said, " I sort of like them because of that, because of law enforcement. But some people don't.
"They think it's an infringement."
After a reporter added that the cameras help catch criminals, he said, "I like them."
Flock operates more than 120,000 cameras under contracts with 7,000 law enforcement agencies, The New York Times reported.
Flock Safety notes on its website that the company " does not specifics regarding individual agency contracts, camera counts, locations or deployments.
"The customer agency is the best source for local deployment, policy, retention, and public safety outcome information."
The full story
This article is one source in a clustered incident — the cluster page carries the summary, timeline and every other outlet covering it.
