A group of online creators with a combined 46 million followers is demanding Lowe’s and Home Depot — two of the largest home-improvement stores in the US — to cut ties with Flock Safety amid a nationwide campaign against large retailers that may have contracts with the surveillance tech company.
In a letter sent Friday morning to the companies’ executives, 56 content creators called on Lowe’s and Home Depot to “terminate all its contracts with Flock Safety” and remove the company’s automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, from their parking lots.
The letter raised concerns that data gathered by the cameras could be accessed by federal or local law enforcement agencies to target immigrant day laborers and other shoppers.
“By participating in Flock’s network, you are endangering the safety of customers, especially the immigrants and people of color who shop at your stores,” an email that was sent to the executives and viewed by Business Insider said.
Flock cameras collect license plate and vehicle data. A company spokesperson said Flock has more than 5,000 private sector clients, including retailers, healthcare institutions, small businesses, and places of worship.
Law enforcement officers have previously told Business Insider that Flock’s technology has helped their agencies solve crimes. Flock says it helps businesses and communities prevent and investigate crime, including organized retail crime. Business Insider also has reported that Flock cameras can misread license plates, leading law enforcement to the wrong people.
The company has become a flash point amid broader concerns over mass surveillance technology and privacy.
Fight For The Future, a nonprofit digital rights advocacy group that organized the content creator-led campaign, has pointed to a May 2025 report from 404 Media that found local and state police agencies were running searches in Flock’s nationwide ALPR network for ICE and immigration-related probes.
The report did not establish that ICE itself had direct access to Flock’s system, but showed how local agencies could use the network on ICE’s behalf even though the federal agency does not have a formal contract with Flock.
As cities, from Austin to Evanston, Illinois, move to end their contracts with Flock, organizations like Fight For The Future are putting similar pressure on retailers.
A Flock spokesperson said private customers own and control the data collected by their systems, including decisions about access, sharing, and retention. “Law enforcement cannot access a private customer’s data without that customer’s explicit authorization,” the spokesperson said.
A Home Depot spokesperson said the cameras help prevent and investigate theft, fraud, and organized retail crime, as well as protect customers and employees. The retailer said it does not share ALPR data with immigration enforcement or grant federal law enforcement access to its license-plate readers.
Jess Rambo, a Marine veteran who now runs a homesteading and building Instagram account, The Painted Buffalo, with about 28,000 followers, said she shops at her local Home Depot in rural Georgia at least twice a week. She said learning about Home Depot’s use of ALPRs — and the potential for law-enforcement access to the data — prompted her to sign the letter.
“The concern for me is definitely the data collection and the safety of people if that data were put into the wrong hands,” Rambo said.
Alexa Speed, another signatory of the letter, runs Cut Off the Spigot on Instagram and TikTok, as well as a Substack newsletter where she directs consumers to companies she considers problematic. Speed started the Instagram account in April 2025 and has since gained more than 417,000 followers.
Speed told Business Insider that she published an article on her Substack and a video earlier this year about alternatives to Home Depot and Lowe’s after seeing another 404 Media report detailing how local law enforcement can tap into the retailers’ Flock surveillance systems. Joining Fight For The Future’s campaign was a way to extend her advocacy to a “collective action.”
“The only meaningful response is to end and cancel their partnership,” Speed said. “I need to get a faucet or a wrench. I don’t need to be surveilled.”
A Lowe’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
Have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at lloydlee@businessinsider.com or Signal at lloydlee.71. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.
Read the full article here
