How people are fighting back against Flock cameras

Flock cameras don’t look like much: a box on a pole, pointed at the road.

But they photograph passing cars and turn where and when they were seen into searchable records.

Police say that helps solve crimes.

Critics worry about who can really search those records, what they can do with them, and how much of a person’s daily life they might reveal.

So what happens when people find one in their community and want it gone? Quite a bit, it turns out.

Residents across the U.S. are mapping cameras, digging up contracts, and filling public meetings.

Others have gone after the cameras themselves, stealing or vandalizing them .

And this week, 404 Media and WIRED reported that hackers removed one and copied its stored data, giving journalists a rare look inside a device that features software capable of detecting people as well as cars.

Here’s a compilation of what people have done through maps, records requests, petitions, and city hall — and what those efforts have actually changed.

SEE ALSO: What are Flock cameras and why are they so controversial? 1.

Putting Flock cameras on the map One way people are pushing back is by making the cameras easier to see.

Volunteers with Deflock Maps, a crowdsourced automated license plate reader (ALPR) resource, document license plate readers and add their locations to OpenStreetMap .

The site opens on a map dotted with numbered clusters of reported cameras.

Search for a city or ZIP code, zoom in, and those clusters give way to individual locations.