Proton now hosts a free public map of Flock police cameras

Proton, the company behind Proton Mail and Proton VPN, now hosts a free public map of Flock Safety cameras across the US. The move was announced on Wednesday. Anyone can look up whether Flock license plate readers and AI cameras operate near them, and no Proton account or subscription is needed.

What changed

Security researcher Joshua Michael first published the interactive map in September. Flock quickly sent a trademark complaint, and the company has repeatedly tried to shut the tool down through legal threats. The map stayed online. Now it also lives on Proton's servers in Switzerland.

That location matters. Proton's site says that under Swiss data protection rules, it does not have to comply with requests that are not backed by a Swiss court order. Flock is a US company, so a legal threat from the US carries less weight there.

What Flock cameras capture

Flock's systems record license plates, vehicle details, human physical characteristics, and sounds such as gunshots or shouting. Police use the data to search for suspects. Privacy advocates warn the same technology allows widespread, unchecked tracking of ordinary drivers.

The numbers do not match

Flock said this summer that it runs more than 120,000 cameras nationwide. The map lists more than 214,000 Flock devices in service, plus more than 80,000 in the planning stages. Proton says this shows far more cameras are active than Flock currently states.

CNET's senior editor tested the map on a home city that canceled its Flock contract over a year ago. The map showed no active cameras, and it correctly marked the ones that had been taken out. The data is based on Flock's own reporting, which CNET says makes it more trustworthy than crowdsourced tools like the Deflock app, where errors can creep in.

What is not known yet

• Flock did not immediately respond to CNET's request for comment.
• Camera locations change constantly, so the map can fall out of date.
• Proton says it will update the map if new, reliable data becomes available.

Where to look next

For a wider view, the Atlas of Surveillance is a separate project. Volunteers study public data and government records to catalog police technology, including license plate readers, cell-site simulators and body-worn cameras. It updates its findings continuously.