# Little Rock police track you with 116 license plate readers citywide. We mapped them all. > *Verbatim or near-verbatim extract of the archived source, lightly cleaned for readability.* ## Source metadata - **Publisher:** Arkansas Times - **Author:** Milo Strain - **URL:** https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2026/01/12/little-rock-police-track-you-with-116-license-plate-readers-citywide-we-mapped-them-all - **Published:** 2026-01-12 - **Archived:** 2026-05-19, via curl + Wayback Machine Save Page Now - **Wayback snapshot:** 2026-01-16 (existing snapshot; today's Save Page Now POST returned HTTP 200 but the resulting snapshot URL had not yet propagated to the `wayback/available` endpoint at archive time) ## Extract If you live in Central Arkansas and drive a vehicle, you've likely been photographed hundreds of times by your local police department as you go about your daily life. Taken together, these photos create a record of your driving patterns and personal routines that can be shared with law enforcement agencies around the country. Police operate hundreds of automated license plate readers in Central Arkansas — small, unobtrusive surveillance cameras that constantly record and log information about every vehicle they see. Despite their name, the cameras capture more than just license plates: date, time and location get recorded, as does a vehicle's make, model, color and other unique features like bumper stickers and dents. The cameras are capable of scanning thousands of cars per minute. According to the Arkansas Department of Transportation's 2024 daily traffic estimates, an average of 25,000 cars drive daily on Broadway Street. So where are these cameras in your community? It's hard to know. Police departments typically aren't forthcoming with information about their automated license plate readers. **In December, Little Rock's police chief spoke forcefully against a proposal before the city Board of Directors to require more transparency about the Little Rock Police Department's use of surveillance technology, including license plate readers. The city board rejected the ordinance.** Thanks to Arkansas's public records law, though, we know the locations of the Little Rock Police Department's **116 automated license plate readers**. The LRPD released a list to the *Arkansas Times* in response to a request under the state Freedom of Information Act. We've created a map of those locations, using Google Street View when possible to visually verify the placement of each camera. Three of the cameras, labeled "permitting" on the list and highlighted in yellow on our map, have not yet been installed, according to LRPD spokesperson **Mark Edwards**. Almost everything we know about plate readers, such as where they are located and what information they collect, is thanks to records obtained through public transparency laws or citizen-led efforts like DeFlock.me, an interactive map of automated license plate readers across the world compiled from crowdsourced data. The website's name is a reference to Flock Safety, one of the largest providers of license plate reader technology in the U.S., whose clients include the **LRPD and police departments in North Little Rock, Sherwood, Jacksonville, Conway and Alexander**. The Atlas of Surveillance, a surveillance technology watchdog project, found Flock Cameras in use by **at least 39 Arkansas law enforcement agencies**. DeFlock gets its data from OpenStreetMap, an open-source collection of geographic data created by a community of mapping enthusiasts that operates in a similar fashion to Wikipedia. Anyone can submit information, but a team of community members monitors and attempts to verify the crowdsourced data, approving or rejecting changes as needed. Local volunteers log license plate readers directly on OpenStreetMap, and DeFlock pulls from that data to create its map. Users have logged more than 56,000 automated plate readers across the lower 48 states, according to DeFlock, but there are likely many more that have yet to be added. DeFlock's map of Little Rock includes a little under half of the 116 on the LRPD's list. A spokesperson for DeFlock told the *Arkansas Times* that their map is generally **"a little better than half complete."** According to DeFlock, **North Little Rock, Jacksonville and Alexander each have more than a dozen plate readers; Sherwood and Bryant have at least nine each.** The information collected by these cameras doesn't stay local. According to documents obtained through public records requests by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit that advocates for digital privacy rights, **the Little Rock Police Department is sharing data with other law enforcement agencies, from Texas to Indiana. Federal agencies including U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol may also request access to data from law enforcement agencies.** ### Unblinking eyes Automated license plate readers scan and collect information on every vehicle they "see." That information is then dumped into a database that law enforcement agencies can search. Police can also create a "hot list" of vehicles. If a plate reader captures a hot vehicle, it notifies the law enforcement agency. Plate readers can make police work easier. Cameras allow for more efficient tracking of things like stolen cars or someone fleeing the scene of a crime. But they also give police departments vast powers of surveillance that carry the potential for abuse and raise concerns about privacy and civil liberties. **Edwards**, the Little Rock police spokesperson, told the *Arkansas Times* that the **"LRPD does not surveil anyone unless there is a lawful reason to do so."** While that may be the case, Flock cameras are indiscriminately collecting data that can be accessed by other law enforcement agencies across the country. **Adam Schwartz**, privacy litigation director for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the technology isn't worth the downsides. > "I think that everybody wants public safety, which is a human right. We have a massive amount of surveillance technologies that are being sold by big companies as a quick fix to the problem, and one of these quick fixes is the license plate reader. The claim is that it is the solution to our public safety problem. But I think if one looks closely at the actual data as well as the negative consequences of license plate readers, it becomes pretty clear that these are usually not a good deal for our communities." The plate readers feed data into a computer system that holds on to it for months, or in some cases years, even though 99.9% of the cars going by aren't on a watchlist, Schwartz said. **In Arkansas, government entities that use license plate readers are required to purge captured data after 150 days. License plate reader manufacturers, which also have access to captured data, aren't held to the same standard, though.** With just a few data points, anyone with access to information captured by plate readers can pretty quickly figure out who's driving and where they've been. Police departments have rules and policies governing how officers or employees access surveillance data, but rules aren't always followed. In November 2025, a police chief in a suburb of Atlanta was arrested for using the city's license plate readers to stalk and harass private citizens. Law enforcement agencies share access to their databases with each other laterally across city, county and state lines and vertically between federal, state and local agencies. **And Flock Safety itself is able to share data from its nationwide network with federal agencies including ICE — even if a police department has opted out of doing so.** **In August, Flock announced that it was pausing all work with federal agencies. The change doesn't preclude entities like ICE and Border Patrol going directly to local police departments to run database searches.** There's also the fact that these cameras, which use artificial intelligence to draw conclusions about the information they collect, can simply make mistakes. > "The plate readers, ultimately, are cameras with a computer interpreting that an image of three squiggles is the letter E and not the letter F, and it makes mistakes. And even though protocol is that the human police officer is supposed to verify that the plate is what the computer says it is, mistakes are made and innocent people find themselves lying on their bellies next to their crying children in parking lots while police officers are waving guns at them because of errors. This has happened on numerous occasions, and it happens disproportionately to people of color because of implicit bias and how officers react to these computer errors." Last year, a Colorado woman was wrongfully accused of theft after officers mistook a vehicle captured on a Flock camera for her car. A Redmond, Washington, man was wrongfully arrested last year after a Flock camera linked his car to a felony warrant for his son, whom he shares a name with. The man was surrounded by officers in his driveway and placed in handcuffs within seconds. It might not even be the police looking at captured data, either. > "You have the problem of thieves breaking into databases and stealing the data, whether it's a foreign country or an organized criminal. Just as we've had data breaches of banks, we also have had data breaches of the security companies who are churning out these safety technologies." While Flock has denied any data breaches, critics say the company has cybersecurity vulnerabilities. **Tech YouTuber Benn Jordan** has published several videos highlighting vulnerabilities in Flock's plate readers. In a November video, Jordan showed it's possible to hack into a Flock camera and take control of it in less than a minute by pressing a button on the back of the device in a certain sequence. Jordan and digital news outlet **404 Media**, which has done extensive reporting on Flock, found dozens of Flock cameras livestreaming their feeds directly to the internet with no password or protection — they even shot part of their video on a Flock camera installed in a public park. In November, several Democrats in Congress asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Flock's cybersecurity practices. The FTC has yet to open any investigation. When asked about the reported cybersecurity vulnerabilities of Flock's system, Edwards said that **"all information is compliant with the FBI and Criminal Justice Institute Standards."** Privacy advocates have managed to eke out a few victories against Flock, including one recent case in Arkansas. **In July 2025, the city of Greers Ferry relocated a Flock camera that had been aimed directly at the home of residents Charlie and Angie Wolf after the Institute for Justice, a libertarian nonprofit law firm that's challenged the use of plate readers in other states, sent a letter to city officials threatening legal action if the camera was not removed.** > "After months of warrantless surveillance, we're relieved the camera has finally been moved from in front of our home. But nobody else should have to experience this either, and it's time for cities across the country to reassess whether partnering with Flock is really worth sacrificing our Fourth Amendment rights." Some cities have already ended their partnerships with Flock. In May 2025, the Denver City Council unanimously voted against a contract extension with Flock, citing concerns about data security and the potential for immigration enforcement agencies to access data. The following month, **Austin, Texas, ended its Flock contract after some city council members said they were concerned the data could be used for immigration enforcement or to track people seeking out-of-state abortions or gender-affirming care.** **According to an audit of Austin's use of Flock cameras released a month before city council members ended the contract, 75 million scans led to 165 arrests, 133 prosecutions and one missing person found. That's about 0.0001% of scans resulting in prosecutions in a city of more than 960,000 people.** **The Little Rock Board of Directors, which approved the contract with Flock in 2020, most recently voted to extend the city's Flock contract in October 2025 for two years, costing taxpayers $690,000.** In December, **At-Large Director Antwan Phillips** proposed an ordinance to codify transparency requirements on the LRPD's use of surveillance technology, including automated license plate readers and ShotSpotter acoustic gunshot detectors. The ordinance would have required the police department to publish an annual report detailing its use of surveillance technology, and to document its compliance with laws regarding data collection and retention. **Little Rock Police Chief Heath Helton** told city board members the department is already doing most of what the ordinance would require and that codifying it was unnecessary and inefficient. > "If the department were to publish a report, the average person out here is not going to read past two or three paragraphs because it gets overwhelming. Especially when you start talking about technology, because there's a lot of things about technology the average person just simply don't understand." Helton added that LRPD is working with Flock to establish an online transparency portal, an option that has always been available to the department at no extra cost but that hasn't yet been activated. According to data aggregator **Eyes on Flock, at least 768 police departments operate transparency portals** that provide a limited view of data collected by its cameras. Police departments can choose what data is shared on the portal. **Phillips' ordinance failed, with Directors Kathy Webb, Capi Peck, Lance Hines, B.J. Wyrick and Dean Kumpuris voting against it. The vote was split along racial lines, with Directors Virgil Miller, Andrea Lewis and Phillips, who are all Black, the only votes to require the extra degree of transparency.** ### Searches far and wide Police departments aren't just collecting a vast trove of information locally; they're sharing it nationally. In August 2025, **404 Media** published a story about the use of Flock cameras at big box retailers such as Home Depot and Lowe's. (Private businesses are increasingly adopting license plate readers and, in some cases, sharing the data they collect with law enforcement). The story includes a link to a **175-page document shared with the outlet by the Electronic Frontier Foundation** that provides a window onto how broadly law enforcement agencies share the data. **It lists thousands of entities whose records are searchable by the sheriff's office in Johnson County, Texas, which is just south of Fort Worth, and how many cameras each one has.** The Little Rock Police Department is among them, as are a number of other law enforcement agencies in Arkansas, including: - **Benton County Sheriff's Office** — 6 cameras - **Jonesboro Police Department** — 44 cameras - **Little Flock Police Department** — 2 cameras - **Malvern Police Department** — 4 cameras - **Pine Bluff Police Department** — 82 cameras - **Pocahontas Police Department** — 8 cameras - **Texarkana, Arkansas, Police Department** — 8 cameras - **Trumann Police Department** — 20 cameras That's nine Arkansas law enforcement agencies sharing data from hundreds of cameras with a Texas sheriff's department hundreds of miles away. Whenever the Johnson County Sheriff's Department searches its Flock database, officers have the option to search every license plate scanned by those Arkansas law enforcement agencies' cameras, as well as thousands of other entities. **Edwards**, the LRPD spokesperson, provided this statement when asked about what entities the LRPD shares its data with: > "Data sharing between agencies is a critical part of modern policing and public safety. While information is shared nationally, it's done with a specific purpose; to assist in active investigations and safely locate individuals or vehicles connected to criminal activity. Therefore, when an outside agency identifies a vehicle or suspect(s) in Little Rock, that information is promptly shared with LRPD to ensure a timely and coordinated effort in the apprehension of said suspect. That data is governed by strict privacy, security and accountability standards." The website **Have I Been Flocked** lets people search license plate numbers to see if they've come up in Flock database searches made by police departments. **According to Have I Been Flocked, 191 LRPD officers performed more than 66,000 searches between March 23, 2022, and Dec. 12, 2025.** These searches, which can be run without warrants, provide police with information about people's physical whereabouts over a period of time. Each search has a reason listed — usually a specific offense like "stolen vehicle" or "wanted person" or "hit and run," though some are more vague. **Some searches done by the LRPD simply list the word "investigation" or "suspicious." One from June 11, 2025, states the reason as "aggregated assault," presumably a typo. A search on June 16 gives the reason as "suicidal subject," with the search filter set to "Texas."** ## Notes - Tier: 3 — established Arkansas news outlet with original FOIA-derived reporting; the article reproduces FOIA-anchored facts (the 116-camera count, the 191-officer × 66,000-search figure, agency-by-agency camera counts) that should be re-citable from FOIA documents directly when those productions arrive. - Cited by: *(will populate when LRPD source pages are added, after the LRPD FOIA response arrives — request `[email protected]` filed 2026-05-19)* ## Key facts surfaced (for cross-reference when LRPD production arrives) - **LRPD operates 116 ALPR cameras** (3 in "permitting" / not-yet-installed at article date 2026-01-12). - **Contract approved 2020 by LR Board of Directors; renewed October 2025 for 2 years at $690,000** total. - **191 LRPD officers performed 66,000+ Flock searches** between March 23, 2022 and December 12, 2025. - **LRPD spokesperson:** Mark Edwards. - **LRPD Chief:** Heath Helton (succeeded by some intervening date; possibly current at article time). - **December 2025 transparency ordinance** by At-Large Director **Antwan Phillips** failed 5-3: - **NO votes:** Webb, Peck, Hines, Wyrick, Kumpuris. - **YES votes:** Miller, Lewis, Phillips. The article specifically notes the vote split along racial lines (Black directors all voted yes; the no votes were all white). - **Arkansas statutory ALPR data retention: 150 days** for government entities (matches the limit Conway PD Policy 800-32 cites, anchored at [[CPD Policy 800-32 — License Plate Reader Vehicle Operations]]). The retention cap **does not apply to ALPR manufacturers** (i.e., Flock retains data separately under its own terms). - **Flock paused federal-agency work in August 2025** — but local PDs can still respond to direct ICE / Border Patrol queries. This is significant context for the Conway [[Federal Searches CSV]] which shows USPIS + FBI + NPS queries continuing into April 2026 (the "pause" did not eliminate federal access; ICE and CBP are absent from the Conway data, but FBI is heavily present). - **Greers Ferry, AR (July 2025)** — Institute for Justice forced relocation of a Flock camera aimed at residents Charlie and Angie Wolf's home. First documented Arkansas pushback case. - **Other Arkansas Flock customers (per the EFF 175-page document on Johnson County TX SO data sharing):** - Benton County SO — 6 cameras - Jonesboro PD — 44 cameras - Little Flock PD — 2 cameras (note: "Little Flock" is a town in Benton County, AR, ~3,000 pop — a coincidental shared name with "Flock Safety") - Malvern PD — 4 cameras - Pine Bluff PD — 82 cameras (second largest Arkansas deployment after LRPD's 116) - Pocahontas PD — 8 cameras - Texarkana, AR PD — 8 cameras - Trumann PD — 20 cameras - **Austin TX audit** — 75 million scans → 165 arrests → 133 prosecutions → 1 missing person found in a city of 960,000+. Conversion ratio ≈ 0.0001% of scans-to-prosecutions. Comparable framing for the Conway H1 2025 LPR Report (6.3M reads / 2,007 hits / 3 outcomes per [[LPR Report First Half 2025]]). - **404 Media + EFF coverage** of Flock at big-box retailers (Home Depot, Lowe's) provides the broader national context for the Conway [[Home Depot Camera Sharing Series]] documented in PD-2026-354. - **Benn Jordan** — tech YouTuber whose Nov 2025 video demonstrated a Flock camera hack (button-sequence on back of device). This is presumably the "YouTuber" Flock obliquely references in its rebuttal talking points (see [[Vendor PR and Political Communications]] / [[Flock Cameras Apr 2026 City Council QA Thread]]). - **Have I Been Flocked** — website that lets the public search license plates against Flock database searches. The 191 LRPD officers / 66,000 searches stat traces here. - **Eyes on Flock** — data aggregator showing 768 police departments with transparency portals; LRPD does not operate one (per the article; LRPD said it is "working with Flock to establish one"). ## Cross-references to add when LRPD source pages are built - [[CPD Policy 800-32 — License Plate Reader Vehicle Operations]] — the article's "150-day Arkansas retention requirement" trace. - [[Federal LE Data-Sharing Pipeline]] — article's "Flock paused federal work in August 2025" detail + "ICE/Border Patrol can go direct to local PDs" detail. - [[Home Depot Camera Sharing Series]] — article's reference to 404 Media's coverage of THD / Lowe's Flock partnerships. - [[LPR Report First Half 2025]] — Conway's similar reads-to-outcomes ratio. - [[Flock Cameras Apr 2026 City Council QA Thread]] — Benn Jordan vulnerability disclosure is the "YouTuber claim" Flock rebuts in talking points. - [[Vendor PR and Political Communications]] — Flock's "Fact Check: No Hack" framing in light of Jordan's documented demo + 404 Media's unprotected-livestream finding.