Suffolk County has more than doubled the number of Flock Safety license-plate cameras it operates in the past year, with a large share of the new devices installed around the Hamptons, according to county records.
County officials say more than 30 new AI-powered cameras have gone up along Suffolk roads since August 2025, with additional units still being installed. That brings the county-operated total from 25 last year to roughly 60 — a 140% increase in under a year. County officials have told the New York Post that another expansion deal may be in the works.
The county-run cameras are only part of the picture. Suffolk already has hundreds more Flock cameras in place through separate agreements with towns, villages and private communities, most of which feed their data into the same shared Flock network that police can search. Additional plate readers that don’t require legislative approval have also been installed on Suffolk roads, though county documents don’t specify exact locations.
Next door in Nassau County, Flock cameras already average roughly one every nine and a half miles, among the densest such networks in the country, the Post has previously reported.
Where the new cameras are
The latest expansion was funded by a $542,500 state law-enforcement technology grant, unanimously approved by the Suffolk County Legislature in August 2025. It paid for 35 additional cameras, with 16 placed across the East End — including Southampton, Riverhead, Southold, Route 114 in Sag Harbor, East Hampton Village, and near Exit 71 on the Long Island Expressway — according to documents from the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Department.
Each camera scans and stores data on every passing vehicle, including license plate numbers and identifying details such as dents or bumper stickers. That information becomes searchable nationwide by police without a warrant, and can be used to reconstruct a vehicle’s movements over time.
A separate listening system, delayed
The camera expansion comes as Suffolk County unexpectedly delayed installation of Flock’s
Add comment