Camera map

# There are cameras everywhere

Every automated license plate reader that volunteers have recorded in OpenStreetMap for this area. No agency publishes a map of its own cameras, so this is assembled from what people have found and reported. Pan and zoom to load a new area.

      Show non-ALPR surveillance cameras  Loading map…    ** License plate reader (ALPR) ** Other surveillance camera

## Where this data comes from

Camera locations are pulled live from [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/) through the Overpass API, using the same tags the [DeFlock](https://deflocktheusa.com/the-map/) project uses: `man_made=surveillance` combined with `surveillance:type=ALPR`. Because both projects read from OpenStreetMap, a camera added by anyone appears here, on DeFlock, and on every other map built on that data.

**This map is incomplete, and always will be.** It shows cameras that a volunteer has physically found and recorded. It is not an official inventory, no agency has confirmed it, and the absence of a marker means nothing at all. Treat it as a floor, not a census.

## Add a camera you have seen

1. Photograph the camera and note the pole's position, from a public road or sidewalk; there is no need to go anywhere you would not otherwise be.
2. Sign up at [openstreetmap.org](https://www.openstreetmap.org/user/new), or use the guided form at [DeFlock](https://deflocktheusa.com/), which walks you through the tagging.
3. Tag the node `man_made=surveillance` and `surveillance:type=ALPR`. Where you can identify them, add `brand=Flock Safety`, `operator=` the agency that runs it, and `direction=` the compass bearing it faces. Those three are what make a dot on a map into evidence.

Additions can take a few minutes to appear here after they are accepted into OpenStreetMap.

## Reading the map honestly

A dense cluster of dots may mean that someone has mapped that area carefully, not that it has more cameras. An empty area may simply mean nobody has mapped it yet. This is a community-sourced map, not a complete inventory.

More important than the number of cameras is where they are located. A few cameras positioned on the main roads into a neighborhood can record vehicles entering and leaving, potentially creating a record of who comes and goes even when there are no cameras on the neighborhood’s smaller streets.

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_Machine readable version of https://flock-truth.com/map. The interactive map and article filters are HTML only._