WATCHED

Every day, automated cameras quietly record vehicles traveling America's roads. They can help investigators recover stolen cars, locate missing people, and develop leads in serious crimes. But as individual cameras have grown into searchable networks, a larger question has emerged: Who can access that information-and what rules should govern its use?

WATCHED traces the rise of automated license plate reader technology in America, with particular attention to Flock Safety and the rapidly expanding role of ALPR networks in modern law enforcement.

Drawing from court records, government investigations, official agency statements, company materials, public records, and documented reporting, Matthew McCord examines both sides of one of the most consequential technology debates unfolding in American communities.

The book follows the story from the early public-safety rationale for automated plate readers through their rapid adoption and increasingly sophisticated capabilities. Along the way, it examines documented controversies involving data sharing, accuracy, interstate searches, protest surveillance, immigration enforcement, sensitive investigations, and alleged misuse by authorized users.

But WATCHED is not an argument that surveillance technology is inherently good or bad.

It also examines the legitimate investigative uses of ALPR systems, the safeguards introduced by Flock Safety and government agencies, the ways audits have helped identify potential misuse, and the difficult choices facing communities attempting to balance effective law enforcement with individual privacy.

As artificial intelligence begins expanding what investigative systems can infer from previously disconnected information, the debate is no longer simply about cameras reading license plates.

It is about what happens when observations become networks-and networks become knowledge.

Inside WATCHED, readers will explore:

• How automated license plate readers actually work
• Why law-enforcement agencies adopted them so rapidly
• The growth of Flock Safety and interconnected ALPR networks
• Documented cases involving false alerts and disputed searches
• Reproductive-health and interstate-data controversies
• Federal access and immigration-enforcement concerns
• Searches involving protests and First Amendment activity
• Constitutional challenges reaching American courts
• The 2026 investigations involving alleged misuse by authorized users
• Flock Safety's evolving privacy, security, and accountability safeguards
• Municipalities that reconsidered or changed their ALPR programs
• Emerging AI-assisted investigative capabilities
• Practical safeguards policymakers may consider as the technology evolves

Technology can make communities safer. It can also give institutions capabilities that previous generations never had.

Understanding both realities is essential to deciding what comes next.

The question isn't simply whether this technology works. It's how a free society chooses to govern what it can see.