Reading the map
Every symbol on the Fort Worth Flock Finder map, what it means — and, just as important, what it does not claim.
The map has a small grammar. Shape says what a device does. Fill says how sure we are. Colour says who reported it and whether it is still there. Nothing on the map is a verdict; each mark is a statement about what we know, and the marks are designed so that when we know less, they say less.
The symbols below are drawn by the same code that draws the map, so this page cannot quietly fall out of date.
Two sources, two kinds of mark
Everything on the map comes from one of two places, and you can switch either off under Filter the map.
-
Fort Worth Flock Finder Submitted
Photographed by a neighbour, reviewed, and written up. Same size and shading as an imported dot; only colour and shape differ. Click one for the photographs, the annotated overview and the findings for that site.
-
DeFlock.org Reported
Imported every morning from DeFlock.org's feed of OpenStreetMap, trimmed to Tarrant County and Fort Worth. Graphite: a report exists, and that is all the mark says. Nobody from here has photographed it yet.
Photographed devices
The pin at a photographed site shows the highest-priority state among the devices currently switched on there. Hide a category in the filter and the pin honestly changes to reflect what is left.
Circle: it captures people. Square: it does not. Diamond: we have not yet worked out what it is. Full interior: established. Faint interior: capable of capture, not established as part of a network.
Reported on DeFlock.org
Green never appears on its own. A camera that drops off DeFlock.org's feed is shown dashed, because a mapper deleting a node looks exactly like a city taking a camera down. The struck circle appears only after a person has confirmed the pole is bare. If you can get to one of the dashed ones safely and legally, a photograph settles it either way.
When a DeFlock.org report and a photographed site turn out to be the same pole, both marks stay on the map and each one's panel names the other. That link is made by hand after judging the pair — never by distance alone.
Names
“Flock Safety” is what it says on the housing. Flock Group Inc. is what it says on the incorporation papers. This map names the corporation — the thing that signs the contracts, answers the subpoenas and cashes the cheques — and leaves the friendlier name to the sales deck.
One exception, on purpose: where the map quotes an OpenStreetMap record, you will see “Flock Safety”, because that is the entry on the list the volunteer picked from, and we do not edit other people’s records. The row says tagged so you know which is which. Other makers are shown as they were tagged.
What the cameras are pointed at
Under the filter there is a question: What are these cameras pointed at? Open it and the map adds places — not devices — that have a camera within 1,000 feet. They use one colour nothing else on the map uses, and a rounded tile instead of a pin.
Click a place and dashed lines run from it to every camera that can see it. Those lines are straight-line distance, not sight lines: they say how far, not what the camera can actually resolve.
The area
The map covers Tarrant County and Fort Worth — everything inside the county line or inside the city limits, since Fort Worth spills past the county on the north and west. The control in the map corner (and the same row under the filter) chooses between two views. Every count in the filter follows the choice, and the map remembers it.
The imports stop at that edge, so a camera just beyond it is not on this map. Photographs are accepted from the same area, so a device you can submit is a device the map can show.
The colours, and why
| Colour | Where | What it means |
|---|
A few colours were kept off the map on purpose. No party's blue or red is used as a signal — the one red here means confirmed mass surveillance and nothing else. No local team's colours. No city brand colour on any marker; the flag's longhorn brown appears only on the city edge and its blue on the county edge, where they are talking about Fort Worth as a place. Green is reserved for a removal a person has confirmed, so it cannot be read as approval of a working camera.
Every state also differs from its neighbours by shape, not just hue, so the map still reads for the roughly one in twelve men who cannot tell red from green.
What the map does not claim
- A DeFlock.org mark means a report exists on OpenStreetMap. It is not a finding of ours until it has been photographed and written up.
- Unidentified is a statement about our knowledge, not a judgement about the device.
- The amber halo means the report is recent. The camera may be older.
- The cone is the bearing a volunteer recorded, thirty metres long for legibility. It is not a measured field of view, and a camera with no cone may still face somewhere.
- A dashed ring means the camera left the feed. It does not mean it came down.
- A struck circle means a person confirmed it came down. It is the only mark on the map that a person must set by hand.
- Distances to sensitive places are straight lines. Walls, trees and lens choice are not accounted for.