Flock’s latest public materials leave a basic question unanswered: where its license-plate-reading cameras are assembled now. Older promotions connected the hardware to the United States and, at one stage, Atlanta, but a presentation issued this year identifies no manufacturing location. That omission has emerged during a broader fight over whether local authorities should continue using a system that police defend as a crime-fighting tool and activists condemn as a source of intimate movement data.
National protests meet a possible federal funding penalty
A nationwide campaign against the startup has pushed dozens of local governments to stop using its cameras abruptly. Lawmakers in Congress are considering a measure that could withhold federal money from states that do not restrict Flock and other license plate readers. The proposal turns a local procurement dispute into a potential funding consequence for state governments.
Police supporters describe the devices as essential for discouraging criminal activity and resolving investigations. Activists see a different risk: officers could search for vehicles belonging to former partners, pass recordings to immigration authorities or monitor people traveling on foot. These competing accounts explain why the technology has drawn opposition well beyond individual camera installations.
The hardware supply chain has received much less attention, although production location can carry US national-security implications. The manufacturing history can be reconstructed from employee information, supply-chain analysis, US import data and older marketing videos featuring Langley. Together, those materials show a shift from improvised prototypes toward a larger but now unclear assembly network.
Flock’s cameras rely heavily on non-custom parts obtained from suppliers in several countries, and the same components appear in other companies’ products. In a 2021 marketing video, Langley said, “Our value is in the aggregation and the packaging of all of these things … in a nice waterproof, consumer-friendly device.” The statement framed Flock’s advantage as system integration and a consumer-friendly enclosure, not ownership of every internal component.
The result is a dispute with two separate layers: public control of movement records and the physical route by which cameras and sensors reach American roads. The newer materials resolve neither layer because they omit the assembly location without explaining the change.
Import data points toward Primax shipments from Thailand
ImportGenius records show Flock increasingly receiving commodity cameras, radar systems and other components from Primax Electronics in Thailand. Primax is based in Taiwan and operates manufacturing facilities in China, Thailand and other locations. A shipment from Thailand therefore does not, by itself, establish where every component was designed or where a complete camera originated.
Lynn Hughes, an ImportGenius analyst, offered a cautious reading: “My understanding is that these are components, but it looks like Primax manufactures whole security camera solutions.” The description “Radar” appears in quite a few shipment records. Hughes suggested that the term could refer to the radar sensor pods attached to Flock’s cameras.
Flock did not answer most of the detailed questions put to it, although it supplied general information. Company spokesperson Paris Lewbel wrote in an email, “All products that Flock builds are National Defense Authorization Act compliant.” The referenced US law effectively prevents government contractors from using components made by a small group of Chinese technology companies because of security concerns.
That compliance statement addresses a defined supplier restriction, but it does not identify the factory performing final assembly. The company’s assurance and the missing location therefore answer different questions.
Cris van Pelt, who created the Have I Been Flocked advocacy project, sees the origin issue as secondary for local communities but revealing of a wider transparency failure. He argues that tens of thousands of literal and figurative black boxes have been placed on American roads without meaningful oversight. The absence of reliable supply-chain information makes that lack of accountability harder to examine.
Van Pelt summarized the security concern this way: “If any part of the supply chain is compromised, we would never know.” In his view, an undisclosed compromise anywhere in the chain is more serious than the country where workers perform the final assembly.
From Alibaba phone parts to a busy Atlanta floor
Flock’s earliest prototypes were improvised from Android phones purchased on Alibaba. The cameras were removed from the handsets, connected to batteries and soldered onto a solar panel, Langley recalled in a video. The experiment aimed to prove that useful hardware could be assembled from parts costing between $200 and $300 in total.
Earlier this week, hardware information emerged showing that these cameras still use smartphone-style processors and leave a significant amount of data unencrypted. That adds a security dimension separate from the assembly-location dispute: a camera’s point of final assembly does not determine whether the information it collects is adequately protected.
As contracts with homeowners associations began coming in, Flock used a corporate office as its production floor as well. Langley remembered the period as enjoyable, but also disorganized and physically demanding. Pallets carrying parts from China had to be hauled through the building repeatedly during a typical week, covering a quarter of a mile on each trip.
By around 2020, assembly had moved to an Atlanta warehouse-style facility resembling a WeWork location. The facility operator’s promotional video showed a small group of employees trying to produce as many units as possible. Engineers built the main camera device, while less technical workers attached the solar panels and mounting hardware.
Before Flock established its own warehouses, it kept inventories in self-storage facilities around the country so installation crews could collect units when required. The loose arrangement could have made the cameras easier to tamper with than equipment held in more secure company-run locations. That created another safety concern around devices already intended for roadside surveillance.
Older US claims give way to an unknown current location
Flock’s public language changed over time but repeatedly emphasized American production. Its 2019 marketing called the cameras manufactured in the United States. In 2020, the company shortened that claim to made in the USA. A 2021 pitch became more precise, saying assembly took place at Flock Safety in Atlanta, GA.
During the following two years, final assembly began moving to contract operations in North Carolina and Wisconsin. East West Manufacturing and Plexus operated those facilities. Flock also started opening warehouses of its own.
The company wanted to retain assembly in North America for two reasons. Keeping factories nearby was intended to reduce security concerns, especially fears of Chinese surveillance. It also allowed Flock to customize equipment quickly when customer requirements changed.
A 2023 brochure said the cameras were designed and manufactured in the US. By 2024, manufacturing partners had reached a daily output of 500 cameras, a ten-fold jump from the level several years earlier. Most components continued to arrive from Asia.
This history confirms substantial North American contract assembly alongside continued dependence on Asian parts. It does not establish that every current camera follows that route.
In mid-May of this year, as criticism of Flock intensified, US manufacturer East West quietly removed the company from a list of website case studies. East West had previously presented Flock as a customer. Archived copies preserved by the Wayback Machine show the deletion.
A separate East West video promoting its Flock work, posted on LinkedIn in late 2021, remains available. East West and Plexus did not answer requests for comment. It is still not possible to determine where Flock assembles its cameras now, and the company’s marketing presentation from this year contains no location.
A Houston injury adds a workplace-safety question
In July, the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Flock over allegations that it failed to report a June incident promptly. An employee was hospitalized for a leg amputation, according to OSHA records. Those records identify the location as a Flock “audio and video equipment manufacturing” site in Houston, Texas.
The location may instead be a camera installation, with the injury occurring during setup or maintenance. Flock and OSHA did not respond to requests seeking clarification about the site and the work performed there. Flock is contesting a proposed penalty of about $9,500 and says it reported the injury soon after learning what had happened.
Assembly in America does not settle the accountability dispute
Keeping the entire manufacturing chain inside the United States would not necessarily end the bipartisan backlash. Matthew Guariglia, senior policy analyst at the civil liberties advocacy group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said, “Domestic manufacturing is no substitute for accountability over how these systems are built, sold, and used.” He also argued that the multi-billion-dollar mass-surveillance industry does not become safer or more acceptable merely because final assembly occurs in a particular country.
Competitors disclose different slices of their production
Flock’s leading competitors vary in how much they reveal. Motorola Solutions says its license plate cameras are assembled at its own facility in Richardson, Texas. Axon has provided little information about production of its Outpost cameras, though it says other products are assembled in Scottsdale, Arizona. Motorola and Axon did not respond to requests for comment.
The drone business comes with clearer factory details
Flock has been more open about manufacturing its newer surveillance drone. Last October, it announced a company-owned facility in Smyrna, Georgia, where it would assemble drones and solar panels and refurbish various other products. That announcement provided a named location of the kind missing from its current camera materials.
US law now places broad restrictions on foreign-made drones, including models from China-based DJI that Flock has been deploying. License plate cameras are not covered by comparable US rules. The difference helps explain why drone production and plate-reading hardware face different legal pressure.
It remains unclear how well the Smyrna operation is performing. Flock repeatedly delayed the launch schedule for its first Alpha drone, which finally entered field use in May. This year, the company told officials in Berkeley, California, that it would replace DJI drones with the US model “within two years.”
Lewbel said Flock continues to bring more Alpha drones online. The result is a sharp contrast: the company offers a named facility and rollout information for its drone program, while the present assembly location for its established license plate cameras remains undisclosed.
