Keeping Watch: Introducing the Community Surveillance Report

As digital oversight expands across Washington County, the line between public safety and personal privacy has become a central conversation for our community. Today, Radio Free Hub City is proud to launch a new tool for civic oversight: the Community Surveillance Report. Using this tool, residents can gain insight into privacy topics such as the over 180,000 vehicles being tracked through automated surveillance across Washington County.

Why This Matters

Across Hagerstown and Washington County, local law enforcement has increasingly turned to Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) technology, specifically the Flock Safety camera network. While these systems are designed to help solve crimes and recover stolen vehicles, they also create a massive “digital fingerprint” of nearly every vehicle that moves through our area.

At Radio Free Hub City, we believe that if the public is being watched, the public should know the numbers.

What the Portal Tracks

The Community Surveillance Report is a live transparency dashboard that aggregates data directly from local law enforcement portals. We aren’t just looking at where the cameras are; we are looking at how they are used. The portal tracks:

• System Expansion: Monitoring the total number of cameras deployed in Hagerstown. Boonsboro, and any other future implementations.
• Surveillance Volume: Tracking the “Unique Vehicles Detected” to show the scale of the surveillance net.

Data You Can Trust

Transparency is only useful if it is current. Our report is updated on the first of every month, providing month-over-month comparisons. This allows you to see whether surveillance is growing, how often police are searching the data, and if the systems are performing as promised.

For example, our initial baseline for late December 2025 shows that while Boonsboro operates 14 cameras, Hagerstown’s network has already grown to 20. In a single 30-day period, these two systems combined to “see” nearly a quarter-million vehicles.

An Independent Watchdog

The Community Surveillance Report isn’t just about Flock cameras. Our goal is to expand this portal to track any public surveillance technology we can obtain statistics for—from municipal CCTV networks to aerial monitoring.

Radio Free Hub City remains committed to providing the community with the raw data needed to have an informed conversation about privacy and policing.

View the live data now at: radiofreehubcity.com/community-surveillance-report/

Article by Ken Buckler, President of Radio Free Hub City

---