Flock Safety cameras read and log every license plate that passes — building a searchable map of where your neighbors go. DeFlock My Town is a free, step-by-step playbook that any resident can follow to bring ALPR surveillance into the light and put the decision back where it belongs: with the community.
This is the pattern that keeps working across the country — from mapping the cameras to writing the ordinance. Work them in order. You don't need to be a lawyer or an activist. You need to be organized and persistent.
ALPRs (automated license plate readers) photograph and log every passing plate, time, and location — creating a searchable record of ordinary people's movements. Learn what your town's system captures, how long it's kept, and who can query it.
You can't organize around something invisible. Document each camera location so residents can see the system as the infrastructure it is. Crowdsourced maps make this fast.
One voice is easy to dismiss; twenty neighbors at a meeting are not. Recruit across the spectrum — privacy matters to conservatives and progressives alike. Find at least one sympathetic council member early.
Facts win rooms. File public-records requests to get the actual contract and policies before you speak. Ohio residents can use an Ohio Public Records Act request.
Attend meetings, speak during public comment, and submit written comments. Keep it tight and local: privacy, data retention, sharing risk, and who's accountable if the data is abused.
Ask a council member to introduce an ordinance. Depending on your town's appetite, aim for a full stop or, at minimum, hard guardrails.
A win isn't self-enforcing. Keep watching the audit portal, hold renewals accountable, and share your playbook with the next town over. That's how a local win becomes a movement.
Our home town, and the first DeFlock My Town page. The Wapakoneta Police Department operates Flock Safety ALPR cameras around the city — and in early August 2026 launched a "Transparency Portal" amid resident questions. That's exactly the moment to organize: the system is here, the conversation is live, and residents deserve a real say in whether it stays, and under what rules.
A dedicated Wapakoneta campaign page — with the specific cameras mapped, the contract details once obtained via records request, meeting dates, and a local sign-up — is in progress. Want to help build it? This is the template every other town will copy.
Two ready-to-use documents so no resident has to start from a blank page. Edit the bracketed blanks for your town and go.
Plain-language template your council ally can introduce — terminate or tightly regulate ALPR use, require removal or data guardrails, and ban warrantless sharing.
Open the template →A tight 2-minute script for the council-meeting mic, plus a short written-comment version you can email in. Focused, factual, local.
Open the script →Vetted national tools and toolkits. DeFlock My Town packages the how-to at the town level; these are the movement's backbone.
The crowdsourced, open-source map of ALPR camera locations nationwide. Find and add cameras in your town.
deflock.me →The ACLU's organizing toolkit and guidance on fighting mass-surveillance license-plate readers in your community.
ACLU toolkit →Step-by-step guide to challenging Flock and other mass-surveillance readers locally.
Read the guide →The Electronic Frontier Foundation's deep reporting on ALPRs, data sharing, and how communities have pushed back.
EFF on DeFlock →