Flock Exposed - Add-On Modules
More Than a License Plate Camera - Flock, Motorola, and Other Surveillance Vendors
Compiled September 15, 2026, updated September 17, 2026 - all items sourced to published reporting, company materials, litigation filings, or official government findings. Scope: this page covers add-on modules and features surveillance vendors can enable on existing camera networks. This document is not limited to Flock - Motorola Solutions is included below, and this remains an open research item for Axon and other vendors (see note at the end).
Gunshot detection - the Raven
Flock sells an audio detection add-on called the Raven. The Raven is an audio gunfire locator that records audio in five-second increments, using artificial intelligence to analyze the sound clips for audible gunfire, and when a gunshot is detected, the device estimates its location and alerts police. It mounts on the same poles as the license plate cameras and is sold as a bolt-on: pair Flock Safety's Raven, its Gunshot Detection system, with LPR and video cameras to deliver real-time, actionable evidence.
Source: Wikipedia (Flock Safety); Flock Safety product materials, 2026
Beyond gunfire - an expanding list of "detections"
Flock markets the same audio/video add-on stack as being able to detect street takeovers, severe crashes, and to distinguish fireworks from gunfire - explicitly expanding alerting beyond gunfire to car crashes, fireworks, and sideshows. Each of these is a separate detection capability layered onto hardware a town may have approved for a narrower, stated purpose.
Source: Flock Safety product materials, 2026
Raven quietly expanded to listen for human voices, marketed first as detecting "screaming"
In October 2025, Flock began advertising an expansion of Raven's audio capability beyond gunfire to human voices, initially marketing the feature with an ad showing a police alert for "screaming." After the Electronic Frontier Foundation reported on the feature, Flock quietly edited the ad on its own website to say "distress" instead of "screaming" - a wording change that did not alter the underlying listening capability. In July 2026, following continued EFF pressure, Flock announced it was ending the rollout of this audio distress-detection feature altogether, though the underlying Raven microphones continue operating for gunfire detection. Flock has stated Raven retains no more than 50 seconds of rolling audio at a time.
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation, "Flock's Gunshot Detection Microphones Will Start Listening for Human Voices," October 2025, and "Victory! Flock Ends Rollout of Audio 'Distress Detection' of Human Voices," July 2026; TechTimes, "Flock Safety Kills Screaming Detector After EFF Pressure, Cameras Still Listen"; 48 Hills, "Flock's panopticon: sight, sound, and search"
Wing Gateway - folding non-Flock cameras into the Flock system
Flock sells a device called the Wing Gateway specifically to connect a community's existing, non-Flock camera systems into Flock's software. In Flock's own words: the Wing Gateway Outdoor allows you to pull all those feeds directly into the Flock platform, all without having to enter a server closet. Flock's marketing states plainly: connect third-party cameras to your Real-Time Crime Center with Wing Gateway devices, gain faster insights, experience AI-powered detection, alerts, and analytics. Flock has since released a "Wing Gateway 2.0," marketed as letting a town build a "cohesive community camera program" by further integrating third-party cameras a town already owns into the Flock platform.
Source: Flock Safety blog and webinar materials, 2026; Flock Safety, "Flock's Newest Video Solutions for Law Enforcement"
Alpha - Flock's drone program, "Drone as First Responder"
Flock sells an automated police drone system called Alpha, marketed as "Drone as First Responder" or DFR. When a 911 call, a Raven audio alert, or a street-level license-plate camera hit triggers an alert, an officer can launch the Alpha drone to the scene; Flock's own marketing cites an 86-second average response time and says 78 percent of qualifying calls are responded to by drone first. The drone can read plates from as far as 2,000 feet away and streams high-definition, thermal, and night-vision video, running on Aerodome software that Flock acquired in October 2024. Privacy advocates including the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU warn that drone flights generate searchable location and video records that go well beyond the single incident that triggered the flight, and that over 1,000 agencies are already operating these drones under FAA waivers with no dedicated federal privacy regulation governing the practice.
Source: Flock Safety, "Flock DFR - Drone as First Responder" product page; Gadget Review, "Flock's Fastest-Growing Business Is Police Drones That Read Plates From the Sky"; Cybernews, "Flock drones are replacing first responder officers"; Yahoo News, "Police Are Deploying 60 MPH Autonomous Drones to Read Your License Plate from the Sky"
Bravo - an on-site AI computer that correlates events across all the add-ons
Flock also sells a local edge-computing unit, referred to as Bravo, described as running classification and event correlation on-device - meaning the correlation of a gunshot alert, a plate read, and a drone launch into a single event record can happen locally rather than solely in Flock's cloud platform.
Source: MaxIntel, "Flock Safety 2026 - Documented Abuses & Fight-Back"
FlockOS is built to absorb outside data, not just Flock hardware
Flock's central software platform, FlockOS, is explicitly designed to consolidate community cameras, evidence detection devices, and third-party data streams for a birdseye view of a whole jurisdiction. Independent review confirms Flock's platform can integrate with third-party detection devices, such as CCTV camera systems - meaning a town's pre-existing, non-Flock camera investment can be pulled into Flock's AI analytics and search system without new camera hardware being installed at all. Flock's own marketing for FlockOS now says it can connect "video, LPR, sensors, CAD, RMS, DFR, 911, gunshots and more" into one platform for police, private security, fire, and EMS - underscoring that the modules above are designed to feed into a single, expanding data system rather than operate as standalone tools.
Source: FlockOS product materials; G2 independent product review, 2026; Flock Safety, "FlockOS - Real-Time Crime Center Platform" product page
Condor - the PTZ camera add-on that tracks people, not plates, despite Flock's "we only read license plates" messaging
Flock sells a separate camera line called Condor: a pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) camera with onboard AI built to detect a human and automatically follow and zoom in on their movements, unlike Flock's Falcon plate readers, which photograph only the rear of passing cars. A June 2026 InvestigateTV demonstration documented a Condor camera pivoting, following, and zooming on a reporter in real time, and 404 Media separately found more than 60 exposed Condor camera feeds livestreaming on the open internet with no password required, some capturing children on playgrounds, a rollerblader's phone screen, and residents' backyards. Flock's public messaging that its cameras "focus on vehicles, not people" and do not use facial recognition applies only to its original ALPR product line and does not describe what Condor is built to do.
Source: InvestigateTV, via Yahoo News and Gadget Review, June 2026; 404 Media; PetaPixel, "Big Brother Left the Door Open," December 2025; Security Boulevard; The Independent Institute, January 2026; San Francisco Standard
The Ring partnership - folding residential doorbell cameras into Flock's law enforcement network, then cancelled after public backlash
In October 2025, Amazon's Ring and Flock Safety announced a partnership to integrate Ring's "Community Requests" feature - which lets local police ask Ring customers for doorbell footage - directly into Flock's software, with footage a customer chose to share packaged by Flock and delivered through the FlockOS or Flock Nova platform to the requesting agency. The plan would have linked one of the country's largest residential camera networks to Flock's law enforcement data platform. After a Super Bowl ad for Ring's unrelated "Search Party" pet-finding feature drew public backlash and a letter from Senator Ed Markey demanding answers about facial recognition and police data sharing, Ring and Flock jointly cancelled the planned integration on February 12, 2026, before it ever went live; Ring said the project would have required more time and resources than anticipated. No Ring customer footage was ever sent to Flock under the arrangement.
Source: Ring blog, "Ring and Flock Cancel Partnership," February 2026; BiometricUpdate, October 2025 and February 2026; TechCrunch, February 13, 2026; Engadget; Scripps News; Snopes, January 30, 2026
Motorola's Avigilon line adds licensed facial recognition and thermal night vision as paid camera add-ons
Separately from Flock, Motorola Solutions' Avigilon camera division sells facial recognition as an optional license that can be purchased and applied broadly across its analytic camera fleet rather than a handful of specially positioned units, matching detected faces against a customer-built watch list. Avigilon also sells H4 and H5A Thermal camera lines that add heat-sensing night vision to see through darkness, smoke, and foliage, and previously sold a thermal "Elevated Temperature Detection" add-on marketed for contactless body-temperature screening. Motorola has also promoted audio analytics for its video security line that can detect the sound of breaking glass, screaming, gunshots, and vehicle or fire alarms - a Motorola parallel to Flock's Raven add-on.
Source: Motorola Solutions, "Facial Recognition" product datasheet; Motorola Solutions H4/H5A Thermal camera product pages; BusinessWire, "Motorola Solutions Introduces H4 Thermal Elevated Temperature Detection Solution"; BusinessWire, "Motorola Solutions to Showcase Video Security Innovation and Integration at GSX 2023"
NOTE ON AXON AND OTHER VENDORS: A focused search did not turn up a specific, well-sourced case of Axon (or its Fusus real-time-crime-center product) activating a feature or camera access without a board's knowledge, comparable to the Flock and Motorola items above. One Axon/Fusus example that surfaced - Asheville, North Carolina's access to Buncombe County's 1,800-camera network - was in fact approved by a 4-1 city council vote on January 24, 2026, after a council member pulled it off the consent agenda for discussion; it is included here only as a contrast, not as an unauthorized-activation example. This is flagged as an open research item rather than filled with a weaker or unverified claim.
This page will be updated as more factual sources become available.