Tell Lowe’s: Flock mass surveillance is not safety
Tell Lowe’s: Mass surveillance is not safety
- Thu, Aug 20 2026 at 9:05 AM
Dear Mark,
Just when we thought infringements on our privacy couldn’t get worse, Flock came into the picture. “Flock Safety” is a company responsible for deploying 120,000 cameras across the US that use artificial intelligence (AI) to read and track our license plates.1 Companies and politicians say that these cameras are for safety …but safety for whom?
The company has blown up since Trump took office last year, and is used extensively by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).2,3 So far, Flock cameras have been used to hunt women seeking reproductive care, pull over innocent people, track protesters, monitor a children’s gymnastics room, and terrorize immigrant families.4,5,6,7,8 Oh, and police are illegally using the Flock database to stalk and harass their exes.9
Women deserve real safety, not a mass surveillance tool that puts us at even greater risk. That’s why we’re going after the biggest companies responsible for deploying Flock cameras, starting with Lowe’s Home Improvement.10
According to the ACLU, companies like Flock that deploy automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) “violate our privacy across the country by taking photos of every vehicle passing their cameras, logging detailed information about them into a massive nationwide database, and making it possible to track those vehicles and apply AI to uncover their occupants’ private patterns of life.”11
We are at the point of no return. If we do not win this fight, our right to privacy could be threatened or effectively eliminated for generations to come. And the impacts are not hypothetical: mega-companies with relationships to our increasingly authoritarian federal government are already spying on Americans and disproportionately hurting women and children.
In 2025, Texas law enforcement used Flock’s system to search more than 83,000 cameras for a woman who got an abortion, which is now illegal in Texas.12 In the spring of this year, researchers found Flock cameras recording in sensitive locations, including a pool at a Jewish Community Center in Atlanta, a children’s gymnastics room, a playground, and several fitness centers and studios--demonstrating how vulnerable Flock cameras put women’s and children’s privacy at risk.13,14 And to date, at least 50 law enforcement officers have been accused or charged with the misuse of Flock or similar ALPR systems to stalk women--mostly their exes.15 And these are the cases we know about!
Lowe’s might say these cameras are to prevent shoplifting and keep customers safe, but we know that is not the full truth: Public record requests confirm Lowe’s is coordinating with Flock Safety representatives to provide multiple law enforcement agencies access to Lowe’s camera footage, even without a court order.16 We have a system of court orders for a reason: to protect people from overreach and harm. It’s clear that the bar of basic respect for Lowe’s customers is on the floor.
Finally, in addition to the inherent dangers and misuse of Flock’s powerful mass surveillance network, the underlying AI in Flock systems is often just plain WRONG or vulnerable to attack. It’s estimated that one in ten license plates scanned by Flock license plate readers even misreads the state! And there have been multiple cases of Flock leaving sensitive livestreams completely accessible on the open Internet.17,18
Enough is enough--we see right through this farce, we are fighting back, and we MUST win. Women face a high risk of violence and deserve real safety from that violence. But it’s clear that this massive surveillance network is meant to monitor, control, and punish, rather than actually keep us safe.
Thank you for being on the front lines of the fight for feminism and democracy in 2026,
--Jenna and the UltraViolet team
Sources:
1. Fight Creepy ALPR Cameras, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), accessed August 19, 2026
2. Ibid.
3. The Private Companies Quietly Building a Police State, Campaign Zero, October 2, 2025
4. A Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion, 404 Media, May 29, 2025
5. Dozens of Innocent Motorists Have Been Pulled Over, Detained at Gunpoint, or Jailed Due to AI License Plate Camera Errors, Institute for Justice, July 20, 2026
6. How Cops Are Using Flock Safety's ALPR Network to Surveil Protesters and Activists, Electronic Frontier Foundation, November 20, 2025
7. City Learns Flock Accessed Cameras in Children's Gymnastics Room as a Sales Pitch Demo, Renews Contract Anyway, 404 Media, April 30, 2026
8. ICE Taps into School Security Cameras to Aid Trump’s Immigration Crackdown, 74 Investigation Finds, The 74, February 10, 2026
9. Flock is just the latest example of using surveillance to stalk women, The 19th, August 12, 2026
10. Flock Safety Shares Vision for a Safer Future at National Anti-Human Trafficking Event, Flock Safety, July 24, 2025
11. Despite 'New' Updates, Flock's Creepy Cameras Remain Major Civil Liberties Threat, American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), August 12, 2026
12. Texas Cop Searched License Plate Cameras Nationwide for a Woman Who Got an Abortion, 404 Media, May 29, 2025
13. Flock camera captured kids on a playground. A security failure exposed them online, Straight Arrow News, December 22, 2025
14. City Learns Flock Accessed Cameras in Children's Gymnastics Room as a Sales Pitch Demo, Renews Contract Anyway, 404 Media, April 30, 2026
15. Flock is just the latest example of using surveillance to stalk women, The 19th, August 12, 2026
16. DEFLOCK LOWE’S, Fight for the Future, accessed August 19, 2026
17. Flock camera captured kids on a playground. A security failure exposed them online, Straight Arrow News, December 22, 2025
18. Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves, 404 Media, December 22, 2025
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