Flock Safety employees accessed live camera feeds from inside a children's
gymnastics studio, a Jewish community center, a playground, and a pool in
Dunwoody, Georgia — not to stop a crime, but to demonstrate Flock's
surveillance product to prospective police department customers. No parents were
notified. No consent was obtained. When the city of Dunwoody found out, they
renewed the contract anyway. What Happened Jason Hunyar, a Dunwoody resident, filed a public records request for Flock's
access logs within the city's camera network. What he found was documented in a
Substack post titled "Why Are Flock Employees Watching Our Children?" The access logs showed Flock sales employees accessing cameras at the Marcus
Jewish Community Center of Atlanta, which is located in Dunwoody. The cameras
captured: A children's gymnastics room — interior footage of minors in a private athletic class
The MJCCA swimming pool — children and families in swimwear
Multiple fitness centers and studios inside the community center
A playground on MJCCA property These cameras were not publicly accessible. They were installed as part of the
city's security infrastructure, with the understanding that access would be
limited to law enforcement and city personnel. Flock's own FAQ page states that
"nobody from Flock Safety is accessing or monitoring your footage" and "Flock
will not share, sell, or access your data." The access logs proved otherwise. Flock's Response Flock did not deny the access occurred. Instead, the company argued that it was
authorized under Dunwoody's "demo partner program" — an arrangement where
select cities allow Flock employees to use their camera networks to demonstrate
products to potential customers. "The city of Dunwoody is one city in our demo partner program," a Flock
spokesperson told 404 Media. "The cities involved in this program have
authorized select Flock employees to demonstrate new products and features as we
develop them in partnership with the city." Flock also attempted to frame the transparency of its access logs as a virtue:
"We're one of the few technology companies in this space dedicated to radical
transparency. I understand the concern from the resident, but it is
unequivocally false to assert that Flock, or the police, or city officials are
doing anything other than using technology to stop major crimes in the city." After Hunyar's report and the subsequent media coverage, Flock announced a
policy change. In a blog post, the company stated that "employees will be
trained to only conduct demos in more public locations, like retail parking
lots." The admission is embedded in the policy change: Flock was accessing cameras in
private indoor spaces containing children, and only stopped after being caught. The City's Response The Dunwoody City Council voted to renew Flock's contract on April 14, 2026. The vote came after weeks of resident testimony opposing the renewal. Hunyar
presented his findings at council meetings. Multiple residents spoke during
public comment. The council approved the contract anyway. According to the Atlanta Press Collective, the contract had been delayed twice.
On the third attempt, it passed. The city chose to continue its relationship
with a vendor whose employees had accessed interior surveillance footage of
children without the knowledge or consent of their parents. The Larger Pattern Dunwoody is not an isolated case. It is the logical endpoint of Flock's business
model. Flock has deployed over 80,000 cameras across more than 5,000 law enforcement
agencies in 49 states. The company processes approximately 20 billion license
plate scans per month. Its system integrates cameras purchased by cities with
cameras purchased by private businesses, HOAs, and community organizations —
creating a network where footage from a Jewish community center's interior
cameras is accessible to a sales team in another state. The access controls that were supposed to prevent this did not work. Flock's
demo partner program appears to have granted broad internal access to live
camera feeds without granular restrictions on which cameras could be viewed,
when, or by whom. The company only restricted access to sensitive locations
after public exposure. The Georgia Connection Georgia's Attorney General Chris Carr, who is running for governor, has
publicly defended Flock on multiple occasions. Hunyar's reporting revealed that
Carr has financial ties to the company that were not disclosed during these
public statements. Flock has deep roots in Georgia. Dunwoody police have appeared in Flock
promotional materials. The city operates a "Real Time Crime Center" — branded as
"powered by Flock Safety." The relationship between the company and the city's
law enforcement apparatus is not transactional. It is symbiotic. This makes independent oversight functionally impossible. When the same
officials who approve the contract also appear in the vendor's marketing
materials, there is no constituency for termination. The residents of Dunwoody
learned this firsthand. What Parents Should Know If your child attends a facility with Flock cameras — private or municipal —
the footage may be accessible to Flock employees for product demonstrations,
research and development, and debugging. The company's publicly stated policy
that "nobody from Flock Safety is accessing or monitoring your footage" was
contradicted by its own access logs. The policy change restricting demos to "more public locations, like retail
parking lots" is a partial acknowledgment of the problem. It does not address
who accessed what footage before the policy changed, whether that footage was
recorded, stored, or shared, or whether similar demo programs exist in other
cities. Flock has not released a full accounting of which cameras were accessed during
which demos in Dunwoody or any other city. The only reason Dunwoody residents
know about the access at all is that Jason Hunyar filed a public records request
and published the results. What You Can Do Check if Flock cameras operate in your city. Use the open-source DeFlock map to find ALPR installations near you.
Submit a public records request for Flock access logs in your jurisdiction. The records exist — Flock's "radical transparency" argument confirms that access is logged. Use the logs to determine whether your city has a demo partner agreement and what cameras have been accessed.
Attend city council meetings when surveillance contracts come up for renewal. Flock contracts are almost never discussed publicly unless residents force the issue.
Read our full investigation on Flock's surveillance network. This is what normalization looks like. A company accesses private interior
footage of children without parental knowledge. It gets caught. It issues a
blog post promising to do better. The city renews the contract. The cycle
repeats — until someone files the records request. --- Read our full Flock Safety investigation: Flock: The Neighborhood Watch That Never Blinks