MapQuest, the Colorado-based navigation service that launched in 1996, has added a Surveillance Layer to its app that marks known automated license plate readers on the map, including the Flock Safety cameras that have become a flashpoint in several states. The update surfaced on Oct. 16. Drivers switch it on themselves, and the cameras it shows come from crowdsourced reports rather than from any list the camera makers publish.
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MapQuest announced the feature on social media with a short instruction: “Turn on the Surveillance Layer in Map Options to see known license plate readers from Flock Safety.” The layer is not limited to one company. It also lists readers and outdoor cameras from Motorola Solutions (Vigilant), Genetec, Axis Communications, Axon, Leonardo (ELSAG), Neology, Rekor, PlateSmart, Ubicquia and Verkada, and users can add devices they spot themselves.
MapQuest’s Surveillance Layer and its DeFlock data
Chris Chilton of Carscoops, in a report on the MapQuest update, noted that Flock has deployed more than 100,000 cameras across the United States, so the map has a great deal to cover. He also cautioned that the feature is unlikely to make drivers invisible to surveillance. Because the data is crowdsourced, a camera that nobody has reported will not appear, and one that does appear tells a driver only that a reader is nearby, not what it recorded or who can search it.
Coverage in ABAB News traced the idea to volunteer mapping. Volunteers have recorded more than 140,000 plate-reader cameras across the United States using platforms such as OpenStreetMap, and the data reflects what people have marked in public rather than manufacturer releases. Flock hardware makes up about 80 percent of the marked cameras, covering 49 states. The earlier DeFlock project followed a similar model: founder Will Freeman told 404 Media in 2024 that he built it to keep a record of the readers he kept noticing after moving to Huntsville, Alabama, and the 404 Media profile of DeFlock described a map that runs on OpenStreetMap and lets users note which direction each camera faces. Carscoops did not name DeFlock as the source of MapQuest’s data.
Texas and Florida move against roadside readers
The launch comes as public officials have started to limit where the cameras can go. The Next Web reported that Governor Greg Abbott froze Texas state funding for the cameras on Aug. 27, after a Texas Tribune investigation found that at least $30 million from a car insurance fee meant to fight catalytic converter theft had gone into Flock cameras, with at least 3,200 counted. Four days later, Will Watts, an assistant secretary at the Florida Department of Transportation, signed a memo revoking every existing plate reader permit on the State Highway System’s right of way, as The Next Web’s account of both actions details.
The Florida memo cites a “recent exponential increase in deployments” and “concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes,” and gives agencies 30 days to remove the cameras. It covers only state highway right of way, not cameras owned by local police or on private land. Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said his office would stop using the readers across Duval County, and sheriff’s offices in Franklin, Liberty and Putnam counties said the same.
Misreads, vandalism and layoffs behind the backlash
Carscoops has tracked the human cost of misreads. In Sherwood, Arkansas, police stopped a couple at gunpoint on Feb. 11 after a Flock reader flagged a plate one character off from a stolen vehicle’s, with the stolen car listed as APX 55Y and the couple’s as APX 55X. Both adults were handcuffed in front of their children and released at the scene once officers realized the mistake, according to the outlet’s March report on the Sherwood stop.
Resistance has also turned physical. In Monterey County, California, detectives say a driver damaged three Flock readers, ramming his truck into at least one, and he was booked on a felony vandalism charge with bail set at $30,000. Sheriff Tina Nieto responded that attempts to disable the systems will not stop her department from doing its job, as recounted in Carscoops’ July account of the arrest. Carscoops, citing Reuters, also reports that Flock cut about 18 percent of its workforce, roughly 270 people, in October.
Flock’s position is that its cameras help law enforcement solve crimes and find missing persons. MapQuest’s layer cannot settle that argument, but it gives a driver a quick look at how many of these devices already stand along familiar routes. Whether other mapping services follow, and whether the volunteer data keeps pace with new installations and removals such as those ordered in Florida, will decide how complete the picture becomes. Anyone curious can open the app, switch on the layer from Map Options and compare it with the roads they drive daily. For now the layer is a snapshot of what volunteers have spotted, with Flock hardware making up most of it.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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