As Flock battles public scrutiny, other police surveillance companies see an opening

Traffic flows past an Axon brand automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera in Silver Spring, Md. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

Dozens of people crammed into a conference room for a gathering at a public library in Washington, D.C.

The topic? Automated license plate readers, such as the ones sold by Flock Safety, a company facing major backlash from residents in communities across the country who find themselves deeply unsettled by privacy concerns.

On Monday, members of DeFlock DC, a grassroots group dedicated to ending all contracts between the Metropolitan Police Department and Flock, explained to the group how these controversial cameras work and where they are located throughout the city.

But as Loreal Hawk, a member of DeFlock DC, told the group gathered, automated license plate readers are neither new nor unique to Flock. Competitors such as Axon, Motorola Solutions and Verkada, offer similar products to law enforcement agencies, and have for years.

Flock has been the target of much of the public's ire, but its rivals have largely avoided it. Now, some of those competitors are trying to cash in on Flock's fall from grace.

More than 130,000 automated license-plate readers, or ALPR's, can be found in cities and towns across the country, according to the crowdsourced database DeFlock.org . The cameras take images of the backs of cars. Law enforcement has increasingly turned to this tool to help solve crime.

"The Flock ALPR technology has captured the public's attention" and spurred a realization that "maybe we don't want to be surveilled all the time," said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University.