As of 1 November 2026, 1,166 Flock and ALPR cameras are mapped within 10 miles of downtown New York (104 tagged Flock Safety), and 2,514 across the wider New York metro, a box roughly 50 miles across, run by 115 operators. See each one on the live map below, which way it faces and its approximate capture zone. Free, no account. BanditKin is the private app that routes around them.
BanditKin › Flock camera map › New York › New York, NY
A suburb out-cameras the core city, private operators show up in the top twenty, and 43% of the readers have a recorded facing — the New York picture in brief.
Look past the city force: NYC Department of Transportation (644) runs more mapped readers around New York than New York City Police Department (217). Regional networks often outgrow the city that gives the metro its name.
Private businesses appear on New York's map: The Home Depot (28) sits inside the twenty largest operators, and of the cameras with a recorded operator type, 38 are privately run rather than public. Those cameras are not run by any police agency, though their reads can be shared.
43% of the mapped cameras around New York (1,089 of 2,514) carry a facing direction — 246th of the 251 tracked metros. Bearings are what make camera-aware routing possible, so the higher that share, the more the avoidance layer can do here.
Public records cover 2 agencies around New York in the EFF Atlas of Surveillance against 115 operators on the map — the difference between a records project and a mapping project, not a contradiction.
The network is regional rather than municipal. Beyond NYC Department of Transportation, the operator table runs through New York City Police Department, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department, Metropolitan Transportation Authority, NYPD and Sayreville Police Department, with the Nassau County Sheriff's Department at 35 — none of which individually dominates the metro.
What the public data actually shows about plate readers around New York, counted from the same map above.
1,166
Flock & ALPR cameras within 10 miles of downtown New York
2,514
Across the wider New York metro (50-mile box)
115
Separate operating agencies on the map
1,089
Cameras with a recorded facing direction
Read from the live map on 1 November 2026. Since 13 October 2026 the 10-mile count moved from 1,158 to 1,166 (+8) and the metro-box count moved from 2,485 to 2,514 (+29). The underlying records are OpenStreetMap entries plus community submissions — nobody who operates a camera is obliged to declare it, so these are the documented minimum rather than the full picture. The metro is a box roughly 50 miles across centred on New York.
Top of the table on size among the 251 metro areas tracked, all counted the same way on the same day.
New York ranks 13th of the 251 metro areas BanditKin tracks by mapped cameras, between Riverside, CA and Newark, NJ, and 6th by operator count.
On composition it ranks 100th on how much of the metro its largest operator holds (26%) and 246th on the share of cameras with a recorded bearing (43%) — a concentrated network.
Mapped ALPR cameras
2,514 — 13th of 251
Separate operators on the map
115 — 6th of 251
Cameras per operator
21.9 — 74th of 251
Largest operator's share
26% — 100th of 251
Share with a recorded bearing
43% — 246th of 251
Ranked against the 251 metro areas BanditKin tracks, every one read from the live map on 1 November 2026. Metro areas are drawn as a box around the city centre, so neighbouring metros can share cameras and these counts must never be added together.
Who runs New York's plate readers — the 20 biggest of 115 operators, by mapped cameras.
NYC Department of Transportation
644 cameras
New York City Police Department
217 cameras
Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police Department
142 cameras
Metropolitan Transportation Authority
80 cameras
NYPD
55 cameras
Sayreville Police Department
46 cameras
Nassau County Sheriff's Department
35 cameras
The Home Depot
28 cameras
MTA
28 cameras
Middlesex County Sheriff's Office
26 cameras
Fort Lee Police Department
25 cameras
Secaucus Police Department
24 cameras
Union County Sheriff's Office
23 cameras
MTA Bridges and Tunnels
19 cameras
Town of Westfield Police Department
19 cameras
Port Authority of NY & NJ
19 cameras
Perth Amboy Police Department
18 cameras
Yonkers Police Department
18 cameras
Rockland County Sheriff's Office
16 cameras
Essex County Sheriff's Office
14 cameras
These are the 20 largest of 115 operators. Where OpenStreetMap names an operator we use that name; otherwise the camera is attributed to whichever jurisdiction it stands in (636 cameras here), which is a sound inference rather than a confirmed fact. 687 cameras record no operator of any kind.
'Flock' has become shorthand for any plate reader. Around New York it is only part of the story — 24% of the vendor-tagged cameras — but Ekin accounts for 565.
Ekin
565 cameras
Flock Safety
531 cameras
Leonardo
274 cameras
Motorola Solutions
217 cameras
Genetec
190 cameras
Mav (IQ:350XR)
108 cameras
Redspeed Redcurb
104 cameras
Axis Communications
90 cameras
Manufacturer is a free-text field, so spellings and legal names have been consolidated here. 215 of 2,514 mapped cameras name no manufacturer at all, which makes the actual distribution broader than shown. 2 further manufacturers fall below the eight shown. These count cameras on the map, not purchase orders.
1,089 of the 2,514 mapped cameras around New York record which way they point, which is what makes routing around them possible.
Most readers sit on a dedicated pole a few metres up, angled at one lane of traffic, with a solar panel above. Where the mount is recorded around New York:
On a dedicated pole
1,144 cameras
On an overhead gantry
124 cameras
On a street lamp
122 cameras
On a post
16 cameras
On a bridge
9 cameras
On a ceiling
3 cameras
On a wall
1 camera
On a building
1 camera
One camera covers one approach, so its heading is what decides which journeys end up recorded. Around New York the mapped bearings distribute like this:
Facing north
192 cameras
Facing south
150 cameras
Facing east
145 cameras
Facing northeast
136 cameras
Facing west
133 cameras
Facing northwest
122 cameras
Facing southwest
111 cameras
Facing southeast
100 cameras
Bearings come from public map data and describe an approximate capture zone, never an exact field of view. 1,423 mapped cameras have no recorded bearing, and 2 are tagged as omnidirectional.
The EFF Atlas of Surveillance documents 2 agencies around New York with automated license plate readers; the map records 115 operators. Both are floors.
The Metropolitan Transit Authority Police scanned 2,536,196 license plates in 2017 using Vigilant Solutions automated license plate readers. Vendor: Vigilant Solutions.
The New York City Police Department uses Argus stationary and mobile automated license plate readers. The agency operates approximately 500 automated license plate readers as part of its Domain Awareness System. Vendor: Argus.
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Atlas of Surveillance. Summaries are the Atlas's own wording, trimmed to a complete sentence.
Knowing where the cameras are is half of it. The BanditKin app routes around the ones with a recorded bearing when you ask it to, tells you plainly when it can't, and never sends your identity or location anywhere.
This page is part of the New York camera hub, which counts every camera inside the state line rather than by metro box. New to this? Read what ALPR cameras capture, how long it is kept, and who can search it. Not in New York? Search the full map by any city.
ALPR camera maps for nearby and related cities: Buffalo, NY · Stamford, CT · Trenton, NJ · New Haven, CT · Allentown, PA · Philadelphia, PA.
Get BanditKin on Google PlayAs of 1 November 2026, 1,166 Flock and ALPR cameras are mapped within 10 miles of downtown New York, 104 of them tagged Flock Safety. Across the wider metro, a box roughly 50 miles across, the map records 2,514 cameras run by 115 separate operators. That is a documented floor, not a full inventory: cameras appear as people map them, and 215 carry no manufacturer tag at all.
The live map above shows 2,514 mapped ALPR cameras around metro New York, each with an approximate viewing cone. Positions come from OpenStreetMap and community reports, so coverage may be incomplete — if you know a camera that isn't shown, you can report it directly on the map.
NYC Department of Transportation is the largest mapped operator with 644 cameras, ahead of New York City Police Department's 217. Beyond them the network spreads across 113 other operators. Private operators are part of it: The Home Depot (28). The EFF Atlas of Surveillance documents 2 agencies across this area.
Avoidance runs off recorded bearings, and New York has 1,089 of 2,514 mapped cameras with one. BanditKin's navigation can route around them: it is opt-in, field-of-view-aware, and has a strength slider you control. Where no camera-free route exists it says so plainly and falls back to the normal route. This is a privacy preference — choosing not to be logged by a commercial surveillance network on public roads — and it works from public camera-location data.
Yes, the map is free, and no account is needed. It is built on public data — OpenStreetMap and the EFF Atlas of Surveillance — plus community reports. The BanditKin app adds the private navigation that routes around the cameras.