{"id":246701,"date":"2026-07-18T15:38:43","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T15:38:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246701\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T15:38:43","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T15:38:43","slug":"police-have-placed-hundreds-of-license-plate-readers-in-wny-investigative-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/246701\/","title":{"rendered":"Police have placed hundreds of license plate readers in WNY : Investigative Post"},"content":{"rendered":"

Erie County has more cameras than any county in upstate. There are nearly 400 installed throughout WNY and they generate data searched extensively by police agencies. <\/p>\n

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A Flock camera installed at The Boulevard shopping plaza in Amherst. Photo by J. Dale Shoemaker.<\/p>\n

Editor\u2019s note: This is the second story on the use of license plate readers in Western New York. Our first story<\/a> focused on the prevalence of the cameras and their use by law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Law-enforcement agencies have installed as many as 395 license plate reading cameras to track drivers\u2019 movement across Western New York.<\/p>\n

The cameras watch students driving to class at Buffalo State University.<\/p>\n

They capture the cars of shoppers at local Lowe\u2019s and Home Depot stores, at the Walden Galleria Mall and at The Boulevard plaza in Amherst.<\/p>\n

They record the vehicles of residents and visitors of low-income housing in the city \u2014 along with those pulling up to buy weed at a dispensary on Virginia Street.<\/p>\n

Twenty law enforcement agencies in Erie and Niagara counties have installed license plate readers or search for vehicles using the Flock surveillance network, an Investigative Post analysis found<\/a>. The cameras record a vehicle\u2019s make, model, color, markings and license plate. Flock cameras then store that information in a database connected to as many as 6,500 other camera networks, accessible by thousands of police agencies across the nation. (Buffalo says data gathered by its license plate readers is available to city cops only.)<\/p>\n

Five local towns with Flock cameras, for example, each reported 300,000 to 500,000 plates captured by their devices over the past month. Those agencies then made a collective 1,500 searches of the Flock system over the same period.<\/p>\n

Open-source data shows 291 license plate readers in Erie County, among the highest number in the state and more than any county in upstate. Only Nassau County on Long Island (331) and Queens County (307) and New York County (299), both in New York City, are reported to have more, according to data from DeFlock<\/a>, an open-source project created by a group opposed to the use of license plate readers. By contrast, Monroe and Onondaga counties, home to Rochester and Syracuse, have a combined total of 193. <\/p>\n

The data has limitations \u2014 it counts routine surveillance cameras at an Amherst elementary school as license plate readers, for example \u2014 but Investigative Post was able to verify with police departments or public records that many of the reported camera locations in Western New York were accurate, including 226 of 291 reported in Erie County.<\/p>\n

\"map<\/p>\n

More than 100 of the license plate readers deployed in Erie County were made by Canadian firm Genetec<\/a> and installed by Buffalo police. Others were made by Flock Safety<\/a>, a fast-growing technology company backed by Silicon Valley funding, or Axon<\/a>, the company that\u2019s made its name selling Tasers and bodycams to police.<\/p>\n

Garret Langley, founder and CEO of Flock, has called<\/a> DeFlock\u2019s tracking of his company\u2019s cameras \u201cterroristic\u201d and similar to \u201cantifa.\u201d Langley, whose company has received more than $650 million<\/a> in Silicon Valley funding, said the group\u2019s \u201cprimary motivation\u201d in identifying the locations of his company\u2019s cameras \u201cis chaos.\u201d<\/p>\n

But in response to open records requests from Investigative Post and local residents, police themselves have shared the locations of their cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Buffalo police, for example, provided via a recent records request a list of where 114 Genetec cameras are located. (As Investigative Post previously reported<\/a>, most are in poor zip codes on the East Side and Lower West Side.) Police in the Town of Tonawanda, West Seneca and Buffalo State University also shared the locations of their Flock cameras. The locations of the license plate readers lined up with the DeFlock map.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Paris Lewbel, a Flock Safety spokesperson, said Langley was \u201creferring to a group of people that was purposefully putting police officers and their active cases at risk\u201d and that his \u201cphrasing could have been better.\u201d He said the company aims to balance public safety with drivers\u2019 privacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe at Flock that privacy and safety should coexist,\u201d Lewbel said. \u201cWe think the conversation about privacy is important. We take it seriously.\u201d<\/p>\n

The data shows that Erie County has the most license plate readers in Western New York. Next is Niagara County with 49, Cattaraugus County (16), Genesee County (13), Chautauqua County (12) Orleans County (10), Wyoming County (4). No data was available for Allegany County.<\/p>\n

Police here say the license plate readers have proven to be a powerful investigative tool that enables officers to find missing vehicles and people, find shoplifters and solve other crimes.<\/p>\n

Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority Police Chief Brian Patterson, for example, said his agency uses Flock to both find stolen cars and to assist federal investigations stemming from incidents at the airport.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s another investigative tool that law enforcement agencies use to solve crime and protect citizens,\u201d he said. \u201cBeing a law enforcement agency, we take advantage of all the technologies that we can in order to carry out what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics, however, say the cameras are unwarranted surveillance of the general public.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere you come and go is private information,\u201d said Jonathan Manes, senior counsel at the MacArthur Justice Center<\/a>, a legal advocacy organization focused on civil rights. \u201cEven though we do these things in public, we are not all being tailed 24\/7 by the police. And yet, now, it can be searched up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Who can view your license plate data<\/p>\n

Data analyzed by Investigative Post found that 20 police departments in Erie and Niagara counties conducted more than 218,000 searches of the Flock network between January 2025 and June 2026.<\/p>\n

Which police can access local Flock depends on who they share access to their network with. The entire Flock system encompasses around 6,500 individual networks of cameras operated by thousands of law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n

Cheektowaga, for example, shares data from its network of 31 Flock cameras with 170 other police agencies \u2014 from New York and bordering states. Cheektowaga, in turn, has access to more than 600 other Flock networks.<\/p>\n

Amherst, which is now switching its license plate readers from Flock to Axon, shared information with 114 other police departments across New York.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

The Town of Tonawanda, according to records, shares information from its 13 Flock cameras with 65 other departments and has access to three dozen.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t immediately clear how many networks Lancaster, Kenmore and Buffalo State University share with. But records showed that Kenmore has access to Flock in 603 other jurisdictions while Buffalo State police can access Flock information from 982. Those include other colleges like the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, Purdue University in Indiana and Temple University\u00a0 in Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Manes, the civil rights attorney, said the sharing aspect of Flock \u201cmeans that a police officer in Texas, say, could \u2026 search up a license plate, and pull data about somebody\u2019s movements in Tonawanda.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to an inquiry from Investigative Post, Buffalo Police spokesperson Timothy Richards said the city\u2019s cameras are not connected to the broader Flock network, meaning only the city\u2019s 700 officers can see drivers\u2019 information. Richards noted, however, that two officers \u201cin specialized positions\u201d have access to the Flock network and use it when \u201ccreating intelligence reports and tracking dangerous suspects of violent crimes.\u201d Data showed those two officers made more than 3,800 searches over the past 17 months. Richards said the city does not pay to search the Flock network.<\/p>\n

Flock drones in Lancaster<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the town and village of Lancaster, which share a police force, is on the verge of deploying a new Flock technology: Drones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The two unmanned flying machines would be installed on the roofs of municipal buildings and used by officers to respond to 911 calls to assess a scene before they can arrive by squad car. The drones would record live video of the scene and then store the footage on a police server.<\/p>\n

Village of Lancaster Trustee Gavin O\u2019Brien has raised numerous concerns about use of the technology.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of threw a fit about it, because I figured this is something that people in the village should be able to weigh in on,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He noted that the village didn\u2019t have a say when the town police installed Flock license plate readers in its jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

After conversations with Flock representatives and the police, he said the company and police brass agreed to only store video recordings for 21 days instead of 30; agreed to not record video while flying to a scene, only once the device arrived at a scene; and to enable two-factor authentication so that officers couldn\u2019t share access to the system with unauthorized users.<\/p>\n

He said he \u201cexercised what oversight I had\u201d but said it was \u201cminimal.\u201d Use of the drones is set to begin soon. O\u2019Brien said he still has concerns about use of the drones at all, including whether the footage will be shared with outside departments. For now, he said, the footage will not be shared. <\/p>\n

But, he said: \u201cI have no doubt that there is intent to make this stuff accessible, just like how their [license plate reader] stuff is accessible, to any subscribing department in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

He, too, is concerned about infringements on personal privacy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think you could solve a lot of crimes if police could just walk in people\u2019s houses randomly and look around,\u201d he said, tongue in cheek. \u201cNo warrant, just come in, search around, and if you\u2019re clean, you\u2019re clean.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this country,\u201d he added, \u201cwe don\u2019t allow that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lancaster police Chief William Gummo did not return a request for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

How much plate readers cost taxpayers<\/p>\n

The cost of license plate readers varies. Flock leases its readers, while other companies sell their cameras.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Local police have used a variety of funding sources to pay for these cameras including local taxpayer funds, grants and federal aid given to municipalities during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

Using pandemic aid, Buffalo bought one batch of Genetec license plate readers for $366,000. Those cameras covered 14 intersections, but the network has since expanded.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Richards declined to provide purchase orders for the cameras \u2014 he requested Investigative Post file a Freedom of Information request for those documents \u2014 but said the \u201cmajority\u201d of the cameras were purchased with grant funding, \u201cnot city resources.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Town of Hamburg Police Chief Peter Dienes told Investigative Post his department leases four Flock cameras at a cost of $12,000 annually.<\/p>\n

Beginning in 2022, Cheektowaga leased 10 Flock cameras for $25,000 per year. The town now has 31, though its total current bill wasn\u2019t immediately available. Captain Jeffrey Schmidt, a police spokesperson, declined to comment on the town\u2019s use of Flock cameras.<\/p>\n

The Town of Tonawanda is ending its Flock contract but has paid the company $45,000 for use of the cameras since early 2025, according to Captain David Price.<\/p>\n

Amherst is switching its cameras from Flock to Axon, Captain Gregg Huller said. It had paid Flock $60,000 annually for 17 cameras, funded via a Gun Involved Violence Elimination (GIVE) grant from the state. Axon\u2019s cameras are more expensive: $300,000 for 24 cameras. But the town will own those instead of lease them.<\/p>\n

\t\t\tposted 1 day ago – July 17, 2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Erie County has more cameras than any county in upstate. There are nearly 400 installed throughout WNY and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137,1856,206,7366],"class_list":["post-246701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news","tag-law-enforcement","tag-police","tag-surveillance"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}