Folks Are Fighting Flock, But There's Another Company Recording Everyone As Well

Flock Safety and the services it offers are a contentious subject with privacy-minded citizens of late, whether they're trying to work out how many Flock cameras are out there, why Home Depot and Lowe's are using them, or the extent of the information that Flock's automated license plate readers (ALPRs) are collecting at street corners and in retailers' parking lots around the U.S. 

While Flock gets most of the attention, it isn't the only company making and deploying ALPRs, nor is it the only one with ties to law enforcement. Another, significantly larger company has been recording license plates and passersby with its network of ALPRs for even longer. It's called Axon, and if you've never heard of it, that's not surprising.

Axon was founded in 1993 as Air Taser Inc., but took its current name in 2017. Whereas Flock originally targeted homeowners associations (HOAs) and everyday consumers, becoming a household name in the process, Axon has largely kept its name and services out of the public eye, despite being a longtime Flock partner and an early investor. This is because it has traditionally marketed its wares directly to police. That imbalance in name recognition is changing, though. In 2025, Axon and Flock had a public spat over data sharing, while 2026 has seen Axon snap up contracts Flock has lost, garnering it the attention of the same organizations resisting Flock's growing presence in U.S. towns and cities.

Axon has nearly six times Flock's market capitalization (approximately $48.8 billion vs. $8.3 billion as of August 31, 2026), is decades older, and has far deeper and longer-standing relationships with law enforcement. That's because ALPRs are just one of the myriad products Axon offers. Like Flock, it also offers drone services, but unlike Flock, Axon is also a leader in body cams, in-vehicle ALPRs, data storage, tasers, live translation, and other equipment and AI-powered software services for law enforcement.

Like Flock, Axon doesn't make public data on precisely how many of its cameras are in service. Nonetheless, customers using Axon's Fusus camera network service have revealed the company has at least 850,000 cameras in service in just 300 jurisdictions — and that's likely far from a comprehensive or exhaustive list, especially as it doesn't include body cams or in-vehicle ALPRs. Flock, on the other hand, says it's active in 5,000+ communities, and DeFlock, a service that crowdsources information on the location of ALPRs, lists a comparatively diminutive 112,000 Flock cameras in the contiguous U.S.

Cities and their citizens have been fighting back against Flock, and the company has announced changes to how it handles and how long it stores data. Even then, the ACLU argues it remains a serious threat to civil liberties. Without pressure to do likewise, though, Axon will remain an arguably even bigger concern.