GREAT FALLS — The next time you pull into the Home Depot parking lot in Great Falls, an AI-enabled camera may be scanning your license plate. Most people have no idea it is happening.
Flock Safety cameras are already operating at local retailers — and as debate over the technology grows across the country, Montana is preparing to respond.
What Flock Cameras Do
Flock Safety operates in over 5,000 communities across 49 states, performing more than 20 billion vehicle scans every month, according to the company. The cameras capture license plates as well as vehicle make, model, color, bumper stickers, and even dents — creating what the company calls a "vehicle fingerprint."
Flock says its cameras do not use facial recognition, that agencies own and control their own data, and that every search requires a documented reason with a permanent audit trail. Data is automatically deleted after 30 days by default.
In 2025, Flock says it supported more than one million criminal investigations and helped locate more than 10,000 missing people.
Home Depot told me that its cameras are used for detecting and preventing theft and protecting the safety of customers and associates — and that it does not grant access to federal law enforcement.
The Privacy Concern
For Great Falls resident and civil rights activist Jasmine Taylor, the technology raises serious concerns — and she says the debate crosses political lines.
"Flock cameras are a tremendous privacy concern. And I think people are kind of, across the spectrum politically, have recognized the privacy concern that exists specifically with Flock due to the advancement of that technology," Taylor said.
Taylor also raises concerns about the AI technology itself, noting that generative AI is not inherently objective and lacks the capability to analyze itself for bias or discrimination.
Those concerns are not unique to Great Falls. In July 2026, the Los Angeles Police Department let its Flock contract expire, citing serious concerns over civil liberties and privacy. Dozens of other cities across the country have followed suit. In 2025, it was reported that Flock data had been queried for use in immigration enforcement in other states — a practice Flock later halted.
Montana's Privacy Record
Montana has some of the strongest privacy protections in the country — and much of that is due to the work of Republican State Senator Daniel Zolnikov.
In 2017, Zolnikov passed a landmark license plate reader bill that greatly restricts how the technology is used in Montana — including how data is retained and who it can be shared with.
"So, in 2017, I passed a license plate reader bill in the state of Montana that greatly restricts license plate readers — how they're used, how the data is retained, who it could be shared with. What that has resulted in is Montana is one of the, I think, two states with the least license plate readers in the country," Zolnikov said.
The result, he says, is that Montana is essentially a void in the national license plate database — with only two or three cameras on public roads statewide.
But Zolnikov says the threat has shifted. The 2017 law targeted government cameras on public roads. Flock cameras at retailers like Home Depot, Lowe's, and Albertsons operate on private property — and that creates a gap the current law does not cover.
"Because now it's not one government camera. It's 10,000 private cameras. So that's where there's a massive amount of surveillance going on. And we're working on updating the legislation to make sure that there are processes where, again, you just need a warrant to obtain that information from those stores," he said.
What Comes Next
Zolnikov says he already has a first draft of a bill that would require law enforcement to obtain a warrant before accessing license plate data collected by private surveillance systems like Flock. He calls it a bipartisan issue — and says Montana has passed more privacy protections than any other state in the nation without being asked to do so.
Montana's constitution explicitly guarantees the right to privacy — one of only a handful of states with that protection written directly into its founding document. Zolnikov says that commitment will continue.
If you want to make your voice heard on the issue, contact your local Montana legislator.
Sources:
- Flock Safety official statement — Paris Lewbel, Public Relations Manager
- Home Depot Great Falls statement
- Montana State Senator Daniel Zolnikov
- TechCrunch, ABC7 Los Angeles, Los Angeles Times — LAPD contract reporting, July 2026
- ACLU of Montana
