Atlanta has become one of the most heavily surveilled cities in America, with more than 5,000 automatic license plate readers tracking vehicles across the city.
But new FBI data suggests the massive expansion of Flock Safety cameras has done little to improve the Atlanta Police Department’s ability to solve crimes.
The findings, first reported by the Atlanta Community Press Collective (ACPC), undercut one of the central arguments made by supporters of automatic license plate reader systems: that sacrificing some privacy is justified because the technology helps police catch criminals.
In several major crime categories, Atlanta’s clearance rates actually fell as the surveillance network expanded.
Homicide Clearance Rate Fell as Cameras Proliferated
Flock Safety launched in 2017 and has since installed an estimated 100,000 automatic license plate readers across the United States, according to the ACLU.
Atlanta has embraced the technology more aggressively than almost anywhere else.
The city is now covered by more than 5,000 Flock and other ALPR cameras capable of photographing vehicles, recording license plates, and building searchable databases of vehicle movements.