projects / flockwatch
An owl-shaped audit lens traces an amplified error through a network of roadside camera pins.
RESEARCH ·

Flockwatch

Public-data campaign and research desk on networked automated license-plate readers — a ban position backed by 29 evidence-graded incidents, scale findings, and a synthetic OCR lab.

Overview

Flockwatch is a public-data CRJU evidence desk on networked automated license-plate-reader (ALPR) systems. Live at flockwatch.hermanity.dev.

The public surface now leads with an explicit campaign position: end routine police use of networked ALPRs — terminate local contracts and remove cameras; ban warrantless law-enforcement use and cross-jurisdictional sharing at the state level. The research substrate under that position remains source-grounded: open web sources, public reports, and reproducible lab methods. No vendor access and no privileged feeds.

What’s on the site

  • Campaign demand — local termination / removal plus a state policy floor at /ban-alpr/
  • 29 evidence-graded incidents — case pathways of harm, not a prevalence rate
  • Scale findings with explicit denominators (mapped cameras, public detection totals)
  • Deterministic OCR / fault lab on synthetic plate crops (local inferences, pinned tooling)
  • Methods, controls, audit guide, data downloads, and claim limitations

What it deliberately does not do

  • No FBI UCR-as-proxy for ALPR harm (UCR does not capture ALPR exposure)
  • No private surveillance data or live vehicle queries
  • No “gotcha” scraping of non-public systems
  • No treating charges or complaints as final adjudications

Why it matters as an agent project

This is the template for source-grounded research that can also take a defensible public position: campaign language stays explicit, evidence stays bounded, lab steps stay pinned and testable, and the Hugo site is the paper + appendix + action path in one deploy.