Alpharetta’s license-plate cameras logged 10.7 million alerts in seven years.
From a department running about 108 devices. Asked under Georgia’s Open Records Act, the city produced the record: what the cameras report, who receives the reads, and what the program costs — down to the check image. This site is that answer made explorable, and every figure on it opens the document it was read from. An alert is a passing plate matching a list, not a stop and not an arrest.
† what an alert is — and is not
An alert is a passing plate matching a list — not a stop, not an arrest, not a crime. Nothing in the export says what an officer did next. They are the vendor’s own figures, produced by the city in answer to a written request under the Georgia Open Records Act. Missing persons: 229 alerts, 0.002%. Source: usage.json.
The alerts, year by year
2020 and 2026 are partial periods — per day is the only column in which all seven compare. An alert is a list match, not enforcement. Source: usage.json.
Where are the cameras?
CHAPTER 01 — THE FULL MAP →†
Point-in-polygon against the city’s OSM boundary — a rectangle over the same window returns 285 and spans four cities. A floor, not a ceiling: the map is drive-by contribution, and private-street cameras are the class it misses.Who receives the plate reads?
CHAPTER 02 — THE SHARING GRAPH →† note
Residents, not people surveilled — and a one-hop floor. 158.0M comes from 18 statewide agencies. Source: sharing.json.A plate read on a Georgia side street is routinely queryable from another time zone. Farthest partner: Benton County, WA — 2,021 mi.
What does it cost?
A $2,000 pilot in March 2020 became $254,750–$276,600 a year across the last three years. 25 check images, produced on request under the Open Records Act — every one matches the city’s own ledger.
2026 is through May — five months. One vendor, one agency: a floor, not the program’s full cost. Source: procurement.json.
Memos verbatim from the city’s ledger. All 25 produced check images match it — exceptions are tagged. Ledger: Flock - Vendor Export.xlsx (Munis (City of Alpharetta financials)) · sha256 6208d87bd6c7…
Plain questions, answered from the record
What is a Flock camera?
A license-plate reader: it photographs every passing vehicle and records plate, time, and location, continuously. Flock Safety is 82% of the 130,550 ALPR cameras mapped across the US and Canada.
Do Flock cameras send tickets?
Nothing in this data is a ticket. The system logs alerts — a plate matching a list. What an officer did next is not in any record the city produced.
Has my plate been read?
This project holds no plate reads, no scan records, no images — never collected. It documents the machinery, not the traffic through it.
Who runs the cameras in the city?
Mostly unrecorded — an operator is named for 22 of 134. Nationally, Lowe's (1,684) and The Home Depot (1,076) run more mapped cameras than most big-city police departments.
What does it cost a city?
Alpharetta paid $1,061,482.88, documented to the check — a $2,000 pilot in March 2020, $276,600 across 2025. One vendor, one agency: a floor, not the program’s full cost.
Is Alpharetta unusual?
No — that is why it matters. The documentation gap found here (15.4%) replicates at 22.1% against 363 agencies’ own 2024 transparency pages. And this record exists because the city answered: asked in writing, Alpharetta produced its alert statistics, its sharing list, and its checks.