Foul Flockchecks license-plate cameras against state placement laws

About & how it works

What is this?

Automated license plate readers (ALPRs) photograph every passing car and log where it was. A few states have passed laws about where these cameras may be placed, such as near schools or places of worship. Foul Flock cross-references crowdsourced camera locations (OpenStreetMap / DeFlock tagging) against a hand-curated table of those placement (siting) statutes, and flags cameras within a screened distance of a protected place: schools, places of worship, healthcare facilities, courts, food banks.

Why does it exist?

Placement laws only matter if someone checks. Agencies rarely audit their own cameras against siting statutes, and doing it by hand means reading statutes and measuring distances one camera at a time. This tool does the tedious part, leaving verification and follow-up to you.

How do I use it?

1. Purple states have a placement law. Zoom into one.
2. Red dots are cameras flagged as close to a protected place. Blue dots were checked and nothing was found; they are hidden until you turn on "Cameras with nothing found" under Layers, then appear once you zoom in to roughly state level. Orange icons are the protected places themselves.
3. Tap or click a red dot to see the distance, the statute, and what the law actually says.

⚠️ Read before acting on anything here

• This is not legal advice. It's a place to start research, not to end it.
• The data can be wrong. Camera positions are crowdsourced: cameras move, get removed, get mis-tagged. Place data has the same problem.
• Some distances are guesses. When a law says "immediately surrounding" instead of giving a number, this map substitutes an adjustable radius and labels it. That number is ours, not the law's.
• Statutes change. Check the citation and the effective date, then read the current text yourself.
• Verify before you file. In person, or through imagery and public records, before contacting any agency.

How to act on a flag

1. Click a flagged camera and review the statute citation and distance.
2. Confirm the camera and the protected place actually exist where mapped.
3. Read the statute at the linked source. Confirm it's in effect and applies.
4. Use "Draft report" for a starting-point letter (records request / relocation request), then replace its contents with facts you've verified yourself.

What do the radius sliders do?

Some statutes say things like "immediately surrounding" without giving a number. Rather than guess what a court would say, the map uses an adjustable "close by" radius (default 100 m) and labels every result that relies on it. Where a statute uses on-property language instead, like Virginia's "on or within the boundaries of", a tighter "on premises" radius applies (default 50 m). Both sliders live in the legend. Neither is a legal threshold, and statutes that state an actual number ignore them.

What do the state colors mean?

Purple states have a siting law. Amber states have no siting statute, but something close to one that the map shows on a best-effort basis: Florida and Texas have pulled ALPR cameras (or new permits) from state highways by executive action, and Connecticut has a provision about cameras near certain clinics and immigrant-services nonprofits whose distance isn't set yet. Amber is a "spirit of" signal, never a legal finding. Gray states were reviewed and have no siting-specific ALPR law (many regulate only data retention or use). A state with no shading has not been reviewed. Hover over a state to see when it was last checked.

Where does the data come from?

Camera locations come from OpenStreetMap using the DeFlock convention (surveillance:type=ALPR). Protected places and state boundaries come from Overture Maps. The law table is hand-curated, with citations and source links on every rule.

Something looks wrong. How do I fix it?

Cameras: every camera's detail panel links to its OpenStreetMap node. Correct the tags there and the next data build picks it up. Places come from Overture Maps, which blends several sources, so report a wrong place as an issue on GitHub. If a law is wrong or missing, open an issue too, with a link to the statute.

Static site; no tracking, no backend. Camera data © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL). Protected places and state boundaries © Overture Maps Foundation (places: CDLA-Permissive-2.0; divisions contain OSM data, ODbL). Made by lowlydba.