Flock (YC 2017) Wants Detailed Map of Its Surveillance Cameras Taken Offline

A cybersecurity researcher created a searchable map that identifies roughly 300,000 devices tied to a private surveillance company’s U.S. network by extracting location coordinates from the company’s own ArcGIS records. The dataset lists more than 170,000 cameras and over 130,000 supplemental devices - including about 27,000 acoustic detectors and networking units that integrate third‑party cameras - and color‑codes units by model (for example, Falcon cameras and Picard processing units). The map links individual device names and street addresses, and was spot‑checked at six Arizona sites. It highlights dense deployments such as 860 devices near Chicago O’Hare at the Rosemont public safety campus, cameras placed inside detention facilities, and units labeled for high‑profile locations like an “FBI Pilot Camera” at J. Edgar Hoover Building. The map was cited in a Senate subcommittee hearing and differs from crowd‑sourced projects by relying on a December 2025 snapshot of the company’s own records.

The researcher says the location data was obtained after discovering an unauthenticated access token on public servers in November 2025, and that he informed the company before archiving and publishing the dataset; the company later published statements denying breaches. Civil liberties groups have accused the company of misleading practices, and the researcher argues the incident shows either deliberate nondisclosure or a national‑security‑scale detection failure. A third party filed a trademark complaint seeking to take the map offline, claiming it improperly used the company’s branding.