CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Shortly before 1 a.m. on May 3, a Chillicothe police officer received an automated alert. A gray Kia K4 had just been flagged by the city’s Flock license plate reader network as it traveled southbound on Bridge Street. The system identified active warrants associated with the vehicle’s registered owner.
The officer moved toward the registered address on Elm Street. Within minutes, the vehicle was spotted exiting Delano Avenue. A traffic stop was initiated on Western Avenue. The registered owner, Zoey M. Ralph, was found in the front passenger seat. She was placed under arrest without incident on her active warrants and transported to the Ross County Jail.
The arrest took less than an hour from the initial camera alert to booking.
It is not an isolated case. On April 22, the Guardian reported that Chillicothe police used the same Flock system to track a reported stolen vehicle from a North Bridge Street gas station, leading to a pursuit and the arrest of a woman wanted on multiple felony warrants. Police have also used the cameras to assist in missing persons searches.
6,358 searches. Eleven cameras. One city.
Audit logs obtained by the Guardian showed Chillicothe police queried the city’s automated license plate reader network 6,358 times over 12 months. The department operates at least 11 Flock Safety cameras positioned at various points throughout the city. An additional camera is located on US 23 south at the Ross and Pike county line.
Flock Safety cameras capture the license plate, make, model, and color of every vehicle that passes within their field of view — around the clock — without any requirement that the driver be suspected of anything. That data is stored in a searchable cloud database that officers can query in real time or retroactively. In the case of the Chillicothe Police Department, these cameras can also give notification alerts.
A detective investigating a crime that happened weeks ago can search the system for every vehicle that passed a given location on a given night — including vehicles belonging to people who had no connection to the crime and no reason to expect they were being documented.
The technology and what it costs
Flock Safety was founded in Atlanta in 2017. Its Falcon camera uses machine learning to read plates in real time and cross-reference them against law enforcement databases, triggering automatic alerts when a vehicle linked to a crime, a stolen car report, or a wanted person is detected.
Each camera runs approximately $2,500 annually, with a one-time installation cost between $250 and $650. The relatively low cost has accelerated adoption across Ohio with little public debate.
Chillicothe is not alone. Flock cameras are operating in Wheelersburg and Hillsboro, among other Ohio communities. The company’s footprint runs into thousands of agencies nationwide.
What critics are saying
Not everyone has accepted the expansion without question. Residents in communities where the cameras have been installed have described the passive, warrant-free recording of vehicle movements as a form of creeping mass surveillance. The description of the technology as “Big Brother in Training” has circulated widely in local discussions.
Law enforcement agencies have generally defended the cameras as a targeted crime-fighting tool. Audit data from Chillicothe supports the argument that the system is being used primarily for serious investigations. But critics argue the issue is not only how the data is being used today — it is what could be done with it tomorrow.
A legal vacuum
Ohio has enacted no law governing how long Flock data can be retained, who can access it, under what circumstances it can be shared with federal agencies, or what oversight is required when the system is used.
The Chillicothe Police Department’s use of Flock sits alongside a broader pattern across Ohio in which surveillance technology has arrived before any legal framework was in place to govern it — expanding into widespread use without public debate or legislative action.