In a nutshell: Cities are collecting vast amounts of vehicle data through AI-powered camera networks, giving police the ability to track a car's movements across jurisdictions in seconds. The same systems are also fueling a growing debate over how much surveillance is too much.

Flock Safety is squarely at the center of that debate. The Atlanta-based company has rapidly expanded by selling automated license plate readers to police departments, neighborhood groups, and private organizations. Its cameras, often mounted inconspicuously on poles, capture images of passing vehicles and convert them into searchable data points. The company says its system logs about 20 billion license plate scans each month.

The technology goes well beyond simply logging plate numbers. Each scan can include details such as a vehicle's color, make, model, and distinguishing features, including bumper stickers or gun racks. That information is stored in a cloud-based system, where law enforcement agencies can run searches using full or partial license plate numbers or even descriptive terms.

In practice, the system functions as a pattern-matching tool. Officers can reconstruct a vehicle's recent movements, set alerts for cars tied to investigations, and, where policies allow, search data collected by agencies in other jurisdictions. Flock says its cameras do not use facial recognition and that images are deleted after about 30 days by default unless a different retention policy is in place.