License-plate-reading cameras operate inside Yosemite National Park, but park officials are pushing back against reports claiming they use Flock cameras specifically. Far beyond Yosemite’s borders, though, reactions to Flock cameras remain passionate.
Outside reports that questions arose concerning Yosemite cameras after entries on DeFlock—a crowdsourced map of automated license plate readers—alleged that several cameras within Yosemite were Flock Safety devices. A single contributor added five entries without photographs, source notes, or verification dates.
Yosemite officials told Outside that identification was incorrect. “Yosemite National Park does not use Flock cameras, license pla[t]e readers, or Flock software,” a spokesperson insisted.
The park does, however, operate its own license plate-reading camera system. Yosemite says seven sites are currently active as part of a traffic-monitoring program designed to collect key metrics of interest.
What Yosemite Says The Cameras Are For
Embedded media follows. Please allow a moment for it to load.
Yosemite says its system photographs passing vehicles and uses optical character recognition to turn license plate characters into text. By recognizing the same plate at two different points over time, the park can calculate how long vehicles take to travel between those locations.
According to the National Park Service, four of the active sites help measure waits at park entrances, while others count vehicles traveling on Glacier Point Road and entering or leaving the eastern portion of Yosemite Valley. The resulting information helps the park estimate traffic and parking conditions for visitors.
The cameras may capture a license plate number as well as text identifying a vehicle’s make or model and other visible labels. However, the write-up on the National Park Service stresses, “The system is not for law enforcement purposes.” They are also “not connected to any law enforcement or DMV database.”
A Yosemite spokesperson told Outside that Axis Camera Systems, not Flock, makes the cameras they use. Because of this setup, the spokesperson explained, “No concessioner or outside entity is involved in operating these cameras.”
What Happens To The License Plate Data
The system does retain information after a vehicle passes a camera. According to the National Park Service, images are normally retained for 30 days, while the associated text record is anonymized and retained indefinitely as a historical record of park visitation.
Yosemite says only a limited number of park employees who manage the program can access the footage and underlying information. More general information, such as traffic statistics and wait times, can then be shared with other park employees and the public.
Although Yosemite says the system is not used for law-enforcement purposes, its policy does allow records to be released in specific circumstances. Those include supporting an ongoing investigation, locating a vehicle for a valid active law-enforcement purpose or search for a missing person, and responding to a valid request from another law-enforcement agency.
The park also says its license plate information cannot, by itself, provide the factual basis for starting an investigation. So, while Yosemite has firmly rejected reports that it uses Flock technology, its clarification also gives visitors additional details about the license plate-reading system it does utilize for the park.