As of 13 October 2026, 258 Flock and ALPR cameras are mapped within 10 miles of downtown Providence (233 tagged Flock Safety), and 498 across the wider Providence metro, a box roughly 50 miles across, run by 34 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 › Rhode Island › Providence, RI
Private operators show up in the top twenty, and 90% of the readers have a recorded facing — the Providence picture in brief.
Providence Police Department runs 58 mapped cameras here, 12% of the metro — 209th-highest concentration of the 251 metros tracked. Bristol County Sheriff's Office follows with 33.
Private businesses appear on Providence's map: The Home Depot (10), Lowe's (6) sit inside the twenty largest operators, and of the cameras with a recorded operator type, 11 are privately run rather than public. Those cameras are not run by any police agency, though their reads can be shared.
90% of the mapped cameras around Providence (449 of 498) carry a facing direction — 135th 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 12 agencies around Providence in the EFF Atlas of Surveillance against 34 operators on the map — the difference between a records project and a mapping project, not a contradiction.
Sheriff's offices are prominent: Bristol County Sheriff's Office and Providence County Sheriff's Office sit in the top twelve, alongside municipal forces such as Cranston Police Department, Fall River Police, Woonsocket Police Department.
What the public data actually shows about plate readers around Providence, counted from the same map above.
258
Flock & ALPR cameras within 10 miles of downtown Providence
498
Across the wider Providence metro (50-mile box)
34
Separate operating agencies on the map
449
Cameras with a recorded facing direction
Read from the live map on 13 October 2026. Since 5 October 2026 the 10-mile count moved from 264 to 258 (-6) and the metro-box count moved from 505 to 498 (-7). 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 Providence.
Mid-table on size among the 251 metro areas tracked, all counted the same way on the same day.
Providence ranks 100th of the 251 metro areas BanditKin tracks by mapped cameras, between Broken Arrow, OK and Newark, DE, and 79th by operator count.
On composition it ranks 209th on how much of the metro its largest operator holds (12%) and 135th on the share of cameras with a recorded bearing (90%) — a spread-out network.
Mapped ALPR cameras
498 — 100th of 251
Separate operators on the map
34 — 79th of 251
Cameras per operator
14.6 — 135th of 251
Largest operator's share
12% — 209th of 251
Share with a recorded bearing
90% — 135th of 251
Ranked against the 251 metro areas BanditKin tracks, every one read from the live map on 13 October 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.
34 operators appear on the map around Providence; the 20 largest are listed here.
Providence Police Department
58 cameras
Bristol County Sheriff's Office
33 cameras
Providence County Sheriff's Office
32 cameras
Norfolk County Sheriff's Office
31 cameras
Cranston Police Department
26 cameras
Fall River Police
21 cameras
Woonsocket Police Department
20 cameras
Pawtucket Police Department
17 cameras
East Providence Police Department
16 cameras
Taunton Police Department
15 cameras
Worcester County Sheriff's Office
15 cameras
Warwick Police Department
14 cameras
Washington County Sheriff's Office
13 cameras
The Home Depot
10 cameras
Newport Police Department
7 cameras
University of Rhode Island
6 cameras
Lowe's
6 cameras
Douglas Police
6 cameras
Sharon Police Department
6 cameras
Kent County Sheriff's Office
5 cameras
These are the 20 largest of 34 operators. Where OpenStreetMap names an operator we use that name; otherwise the camera is attributed to whichever jurisdiction it stands in (319 cameras here), which is a sound inference rather than a confirmed fact. 112 cameras record no operator of any kind.
'Flock' has become shorthand for any plate reader. Around Providence it is mostly accurate — 96% of the vendor-tagged cameras — but Motorola Solutions accounts for 12.
Flock Safety
442 cameras
Motorola Solutions
12 cameras
Sensys
2 cameras
Turing
2 cameras
Altumint Inc.
1 camera
Altumint Inc
1 camera
Axon Enterprise
1 camera
Manufacturer is a free-text field, so spellings and legal names have been consolidated here. 37 of 498 mapped cameras name no manufacturer at all, which makes the actual distribution broader than shown. These count cameras on the map, not purchase orders.
449 of the 498 mapped cameras around Providence record which way they point, which is what makes routing around them possible.
They are easy to miss and hard to unsee — a small rectangular box on a narrow pole near a junction, generally with a solar panel and a stubby barrel lens. Where the data records how a camera around Providence is mounted, the split is:
On a dedicated pole
123 cameras
On a street lamp
6 cameras
On a post
1 camera
On a building
1 camera
One camera covers one approach, so its heading is what decides which journeys end up recorded. Around Providence the mapped bearings distribute like this:
Facing south
70 cameras
Facing north
64 cameras
Facing northwest
60 cameras
Facing southeast
57 cameras
Facing east
56 cameras
Facing northeast
50 cameras
Facing west
47 cameras
Facing southwest
45 cameras
Bearings come from public map data and describe an approximate capture zone, never an exact field of view. 48 mapped cameras have no recorded bearing, and 1 is tagged as omnidirectional.
The EFF's Atlas of Surveillance documents 12 agencies in the Providence area with automated license plate readers, from public records and news reports. The map records 34 operators.
As of April 2024, the Cranston Police Department operates 27 Flock Safety automated license plate readers. The agency stores ALPR data for 30 days. Vendor: Flock Safety.
As of April 2024, the Woonsocket Police Department operates 15 Flock Safety automated license plate readers. The agency stores ALPR data for 30 days. Vendor: Flock Safety.
As of April 2024, the Providence Police Department operates 25 Flock Safety automated license plate readers. The agency stores ALPR data for 30 days. Vendor: Flock Safety.
The Glocester Police Department uses Flock Safety automated license plate readers. Vendor: Flock Safety.
As of April 2024, the Smithfield Police Department operates two Flock Safety automated license plate readers. The agency stores ALPR data for 30 days. Vendor: Flock Safety.
As of April 2024, the East Providence Police Department operates 14 Flock Safety automated license plate readers. The agency stores ALPR data for 30 days. Vendor: Flock Safety.
Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation, Atlas of Surveillance. Summaries are the Atlas's own wording, trimmed to a complete sentence.
The map shows where the readers are and which way they face. BanditKin's navigation turns that into a routing preference: opt-in, field-of-view-aware, with a slider for how hard to try — and an honest fallback when no clean route exists.
This page is part of the Rhode Island 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 Providence? Search the full map by any city.
ALPR camera maps for nearby and related cities: Boston, MA · Hartford, CT · New Haven, CT · Stamford, CT · New York, NY.
Get BanditKin on Google PlayAs of 13 October 2026, 258 Flock and ALPR cameras are mapped within 10 miles of downtown Providence, 233 of them tagged Flock Safety. Across the wider metro, a box roughly 50 miles across, the map records 498 cameras run by 34 separate operators. That is a documented floor, not a full inventory: cameras appear as people map them, and 37 carry no manufacturer tag at all.
Open the map at the top of this page: every mapped camera around Providence is plotted with its capture cone where a bearing is recorded. They cluster at junctions, on arterial roads and at the entrances to shopping centres. Missing one? Report it on the map.
34 operators in total, led by Providence Police Department (58) and Bristol County Sheriff's Office (33). Of the cameras with a recorded operator type, 177 are police, 142 are sheriff's offices and 11 are privately run.
Yes, within limits. BanditKin routes around the 449 Providence cameras whose facing direction is known (90% of the total), with a slider for how hard to try, and it tells you honestly when no camera-free route exists. It is off by default and never sends your identity or location.
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.