Hundreds of automated license plate readers are scattered throughout Memphis, according to ALPR tracking site DeFlock Maps. Stretching from Riverside Drive to the west and beyond Memphis’ eastern borders into Bartlett, Germantown, and other suburbs, a zoom out on the map shows more than 600 cameras from the Mississippi River to Collierville. The site shows a majority percentage (more than 97 percent) of them are Flock Safety Cameras, with the rest labeled “unknown.”
The cameras are said to be used by law enforcement agencies across the country to solve crimes. But we are also hearing stories of officers misusing the technology to stalk exes, people being wrongfully identified as criminals, and citizens vandalizing or otherwise making defective these cameras as uproar against the fast-growing surveillance network being built around us heightens.
When asked via email last week to confirm how many of these cameras were currently operational in Memphis, MPD Public Affairs Manager Faith King responded, “The Memphis Police Department does not maintain a count of all Flock Safety cameras operating throughout Memphis, as many are owned and managed by private businesses, neighborhoods, and other partner organizations.”
The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office Transparency Portal (transparency.flocksafety.com) reports 178 total LPR or other cameras in use. This site states data is retained for 30 days, and within the past 30 days, 905,225 plates have been read.
A 2021 flocksafety.com article (“Save time. Maximize resources: How Shelby County Sheriff’s Office uses Flock Safety”) says Flock cameras have been used here since 2018, following a pilot program with 45 LPR cameras that SCSO said helped increase clearance rates. From the 2021 article, “The Shelby County Sheriff’s Office has access to hundreds of Flock Safety Falcon cameras — nearby law enforcement agencies and neighborhoods share footage — which amounts to 50-60 hot list alerts per day from the camera network in Memphis and beyond.”
In October 2024, Action News 5 reported that Memphis would partner with Flock to “introduce a first-of-its-kind sideshow detection technology” that would alert law enforcement of “street takeovers,” saying, “The new AI-powered technology can precisely distinguish sounds like gunshots, and now it will include things like drifting tires and immediately notify the police.”
In April 2026, the MPD announced that one year after the spring 2025 launch of the Downtown Command Center, a “state-of-the-art facility designed to serve as a central hub for real-time monitoring, public safety coordination, and emergency response,” Downtown crime dropped more than 55 percent. “Monitoring more than 300 cameras in real time, the center provides officers with immediate access to live intelligence. When suspicious or criminal activity is identified, officers are quickly alerted and equipped with real-time updates and detailed suspect information as they respond.”
MPD also has a “public-private” partnership through Connect Memphis, which “allows businesses to integrate their camera systems, enabling officers to view incidents in real time,” the department said in another April 2026 announcement. “Residents who choose not to integrate can still register their cameras, giving investigators quick access to contact information when video evidence is needed. Currently, more than 13,000 cameras are registered, with over 2,700 integrated into the system.”
So how many surveillance cameras do our police have access to? Who knows? But how much do they cost? That question received no response after more than a week and a follow-up email to MPD. While they must know what they pay to access LPR cameras, we will turn to Google, which suggests that, as most Flock users, agencies pay an annual subscription fee, which ranges from $2,500 to $3,000 per camera, per year. Some law enforcement agencies as policy do not report if Flock cameras have been used in a search or investigation. Is this the case for MPD? They offered no response to that question either.
Flock itself is making changes, as noted in an NBC News article from last week, “Surveillance company Flock moves to increase oversight after police misuse.”
The DeFlock Maps site counts 132,639 LPRs in the U.S. and only 100 cities “rejecting LPRs.” Will we one day, because of these cameras, live in a crimeless utopia? Doubtful. Is it too late to reclaim our collective privacy? Probably so. And more polluting data centers will continue to go up to power this surveillance state.
At what point do we say, “Enough!”?
