Privacy Policy
Stop Flock Cams Now (StopFlockCamsNow.com) Effective date: [LAUNCH DATE] · Last updated: 2026-08-23
Stop Flock Cams Now ("SFCN," "we," "us") is an independent public-interest platform that documents automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the United States. We are operated by [OPERATOR — a U.S. nonprofit organization; contact details in the site footer]. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to Flock Safety, Inc.
We built this site for people worried about surveillance. We hold ourselves to the standard we ask of others: collect as little as possible, keep it as briefly as possible, and never monetize it.
1. The short version
- No advertising trackers. No third-party ad networks. Ever.
- Analytics are self-hosted and privacy-first (aggregate counts only, no cross-site tracking, no ad IDs).
- Address and location searches are resolved in your browser wherever possible and are never stored tied to your identity.
- You can browse the entire map and every jurisdiction page without an account.
- We only collect an email address if you ask us for alerts or create a contributor account.
- Photos you submit have GPS EXIF metadata stripped before publication.
- We do not sell, rent, or share personal information for advertising or commercial purposes — with anyone.
2. What we collect, and why
| Activity | Data | Why | Retention |
|---|---|---|---|
| Browsing the site | Standard server logs (IP, user agent, URL, timestamp) as generated by our hosting/CDN provider | Security, abuse prevention, debugging | Rotated on a short cycle (target ≤30 days); never joined to accounts or search queries |
| Map/address search | The address or place you search | To show results. Geocoding runs client-side (in your browser) against our jurisdiction index or a public geocoder; searched addresses are never stored on our servers linked to who you are | Not stored tied to identity; aggregate, non-identifying query counts only |
| Alert subscriptions | Email address; the area or jurisdiction you follow | To send the alerts you requested | Until you unsubscribe (one-click in every email) or 24 months of bounce/inactivity |
| Contributor account | Email; a display name/pseudonym you choose (real names not required); password hash or OAuth token; submission history | Account access; accuracy-based reputation; moderation audit trail (see contributor-policy.md) | Life of the account; deletable on request (see §7) |
| Camera reports | Camera location, photo (EXIF GPS stripped before publication), description, timestamps | The core public dataset | Published data is retained; provenance requires it (see methodology.md) |
| Contacting us | Whatever you send us | To respond | As long as needed to handle the matter; correction and legal correspondence retained per corrections-policy.md |
We do not collect: precise geolocation without your explicit action (the "use my location" button sends coordinates for a one-time lookup and does not store them tied to you), browsing history from other sites, advertising identifiers, biometric data, or license plate numbers of private individuals.
3. Cookies and local storage
We use only functional, first-party storage:
- a session cookie if you log in (contributors/moderators);
- local storage for interface preferences (e.g., map style, dismissed notices);
- a privacy-respecting CAPTCHA (Cloudflare Turnstile) on submission forms to block spam.
No advertising cookies, no third-party analytics cookies, no fingerprinting. Because we use no non-essential tracking, we do not show a cookie-consent banner theater; this notice is the disclosure.
4. Analytics
We run self-hosted analytics (Plausible or umami class software) on our own infrastructure. It records aggregate page views, referrers, and country-level geography without cookies, without persistent identifiers, and without sharing data with any third party. See ../docs/ANALYTICS.md for the full plan.
5. Alert emails
If you subscribe, we email you about changes you asked to follow (new documented cameras near a location, verification-status changes, and similar). Every email has a working one-click unsubscribe. We use a transactional email provider solely as a processor to deliver mail; we do not enrich, resell, or append your address to anything. We do not use open-tracking pixels.
6. Sharing and disclosure
We share personal information only:
- with service providers (hosting/CDN, database, email delivery) acting under contract as processors;
- when required by valid legal process, under the strict procedure in our law-enforcement-request-policy.md — note that by design we hold very little, and we commit to transparency reporting;
- to protect safety in a genuine emergency involving risk of death or serious injury, documented and reported afterward per that same policy;
- in a reorganization of the operating nonprofit, in which case this policy continues to bind the successor.
Public content is public: camera data you submit is published in the open database (see data-license.md) under your chosen display name, never your email.
7. Your rights (all visitors, CCPA/GDPR-style)
Regardless of where you live, you may:
- Access — ask what we hold about you;
- Correct — fix inaccurate account data;
- Delete — have your account and personal data erased (published camera data remains in the open dataset, but we will disassociate your identity from it on request, retaining only the internal moderation audit record required for data integrity);
- Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format;
- Object / restrict / withdraw consent — including unsubscribing from all email;
- Non-discrimination — we never charge for or condition service on privacy choices. We do not "sell" or "share" personal information as defined by the CCPA/CPRA, and we honor Global Privacy Control signals (they require nothing extra from us, since we don't track).
Send requests to [privacy@stopflockcamsnow.com]. We respond within 30 days (45 with notice, where law allows). EU/UK visitors: our legal bases are consent (subscriptions, accounts) and legitimate interest (security logs, running a public-interest archive); you may complain to your supervisory authority.
8. Children
This site is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them. Accounts require you to be at least 16 (fieldwork safety; see contributor-policy.md). If you believe a child has provided us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.
9. Security
Encryption in transit (TLS) and at rest for backups, role-based access controls, MFA for moderator and admin accounts, audit logging of administrative actions, and minimal data as the first control. No system is perfect; if a breach affects your personal data we will notify you as required by law and as fast as practicable.
10. People who appear in our data
Our dataset is about equipment and government agencies, not private individuals. We do not publish license plate data, do not identify camera-adjacent private residents, and strip GPS EXIF from photos. If you believe a published item exposes a private individual (e.g., a person identifiable in a photo), use the report link on the item or see community-guidelines.md; we prioritize such reports.
11. Changes
We will post changes here with a new "last updated" date, and for material changes we will notify subscribers by email and keep prior versions available in a changelog.
Contact: [privacy@stopflockcamsnow.com] · [OPERATOR postal address]
This document is informational and is not legal advice.