Flock Safety sells surveillance cameras that track the public’s movements. But apparently, the company doesn’t want you to know how extensive its surveillance apparatus is or to hear criticism about it — and the company will engage in intimidation to keep it that way.
The latest example of Flock’s censorial methods occurred last month when it targeted Joshua Michael, a cybersecurity researcher who founded Nexanet, with a trademark complaint and a cease-and-desist letter. In November 2025, Michael discovered a vulnerability in Flock’s website that he says allowed him to retrieve extensive information about the company’s nationwide surveillance network without detection.
After discovering the flaw, Michael reported it to Flock, telling the company the data was publicly available and could be found without any hacking. A few days later, after Michael followed up twice, Flock responded: “Thank you for the findings. We are internally triaging them and will reach back out with next steps soon.”
Michael never heard from Flock again until he made his findings known. On Sept. 23, Michael published the Flock Surveillance Map. As part of his research, Michael noted it revealed “camera coverage around 22 sensitive military, intelligence, federal, and defense sites.” As he wrote in an Instagram post from early October: “My thesis is that a company holding the movements of nearly every American, yet unable to detect its own data leaving, is a national security threat, because a foreign adversary will never publish a paper to tip them off.”
Aside from Michael’s national security concerns, the data he published directly contradicted the number of automatic license plate cameras (ALPRs) Flock has publicly stated were in circulation. According to the data Michael retrieved, Flock has more than 300,000 devices in its network, including over 170,000 cameras as well as 27,000 acoustic devices. Over the summer, Flock told The Washington Post that its surveillance network had over 120,000 cameras.
On Sept. 24, Doppel, Flock’s brand protection vendor, requested “the immediate removal” of Michael’s “infringing site.” Interestingly, Flock’s initial complaint didn’t accuse Michael of illegally accessing the data. Instead, Flock’s “authorized agent” says Michael’s site — flocksurveillance.org — “is using trademark FLOCK SAFETY without authorization,” adding that “unauthorized use of their trademark may cause customer confusion / harm.”
Flock’s attorney followed up the next day with a cease-and-desist demand, now concentrating on Michael’s alleged “unauthorized access to computer systems and data associated with Flock.” This time, there was no mention of a trademark violation, a tell-tale indication Flock’s initial trademark complaint was a retaliatory response to Michael’s journalism.
On one level, the pivot makes sense because the alleged trademark violation could well be met with skepticism by the courts. A trademark does two things at once: It protects the holder from unsavory competitors profiting off of their good name, and it signals to consumers they’re buying from the correct provider.
But Michael’s website has no commercial aspect to it. Moreover, trademark law also makes an exception for criticism and news reporting, and Michael’s site was clearly addressing a matter of growing and bipartisan public concern. Nor can Flock claim a reasonable person could believe Michael’s site had any affiliation with the company because when you access it, a disclaimer pops up immediately telling the visitor it is “not affiliated with or endorsed by Flock Safety, Flock Group, Inc., or their products” and that “Flock names and marks belong to their respective owners and are used only to identify the research subject.”
This isn’t the first time Flock has used trademark claims to try and silence its critics. In January 2025, Flock sent Will Freeman a cease-and-desist letter over his crowdsourced mapping project, DeFlock, alleging it diluted Flock’s trademark. The rationale behind Freeman’s project is plainly an act of criticism. According to Freeman, DeFlock’s objective is to “shine a light on the widespread use of ALPR technology, raise awareness about the threat it poses to personal privacy and civil liberties, and empower the public to take action.”
Freeman turned to the Electronic Frontier Foundation to represent him. The tech civil liberties group sent a letter rejecting Flock’s demand. “Your claims of dilution by blurring and/or tarnishment fail at the threshold, without even needing to address why dilution is unlikely,” wrote Cara L. Gagliano, a senior staff attorney at EFF. “Federal anti-dilution law includes express carve-outs for any noncommercial use of a mark and for any use in connection with criticizing or commenting on the mark owner or its products.”
After Gagliano sent the response, neither she nor Freeman ever heard from Flock again. “In my experience,” she told me “that’s the most common outcome when we respond to a weak trademark or copyright claim for a client.”
Flock’s shenanigans involving Michael and Freeman in some ways call to mind strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPPs. In a SLAPP, the plaintiff isn’t primarily worried about winning the lawsuit. Instead, the accuser’s legal threat is meant to intimidate the recipient into silence, and if a lawsuit is actually brought, punish the defendant through time-consuming, stressful, and expensive litigation. That’s why 40 states and the District of Columbia have anti-SLAPP laws to deter this kind of lawfare.
In his X post revealing Flock’s trademark complaint, Michael said he “will not back down.” As of right now, his Flock Surveillance Map is still up. Check out the map and teach Flock about the Streisand Effect — because the things you try to bury have a way of coming back to haunt you.