Flock cameras in Canada
627 ALPR (automated license plate reader) cameras documented across 7 provinces and territories, sourced from OpenStreetMap and refreshed nightly. For comparison, 138,636 are documented in the United States.
Worth being direct about the shape of this: Flock Safety is a US company and its network is overwhelmingly American. Canada's ALPR picture is smaller, differently sourced, and governed by materially stricter privacy law.
627
Documented in Canada
7
Provinces with documented cameras
138,636
Documented in the US, for scale
Flock camera map by province and territory
All 13 provinces and territories have a page, including those with nothing documented yet — "nobody has mapped Yukon" is a real answer, and a more honest one than a 404.
- Alberta 1
- British Columbia 70
- Manitoba 0
- New Brunswick 0
- Newfoundland and Labrador 0
- Northwest Territories 0
- Nova Scotia 1
- Nunavut 0
- Ontario 522
- Prince Edward Island 8
- Quebec 24
- Saskatchewan 1
- Yukon 0
Where Canadian cameras are documented
| Province / territory | Documented cameras |
|---|---|
| Ontario | 522 |
| British Columbia | 70 |
| Quebec | 24 |
| Prince Edward Island | 8 |
| Alberta | 1 |
| Nova Scotia | 1 |
| Saskatchewan | 1 |
Canadian cities with documented cameras
- Bramalea Woods, ON — 34
- University Endowment Lands, BC — 30
- Ellison, BC — 25
- Brooklin, ON — 18
- Richvale, ON — 16
- Brampton, ON — 15
- Mayfield, ON — 14
- Concord, ON — 14
- Hagerman's Corners, ON — 13
- Woodhill, ON — 12
- Black Creek, ON — 12
- Grahamsville, ON — 11
- Burkeville, BC — 10
- Buttonville, ON — 10
- Owen Sound, ON — 10
- Peel Village, ON — 9
- Frasers Corners, ON — 9
- Claireville, ON — 9
- Box Grove, ON — 9
- Pickering, ON — 9
- Eldorado Park, ON — 8
- Alloa, ON — 8
- Bramalea, ON — 8
- Snider, ON — 8
How Canada differs from the US
Different vendors, different mounts
Canadian ALPR skews toward police-operated systems, frequently vehicle-mounted rather than fixed to poles and traffic signals. Mobile readers have no fixed position, so they cannot be mapped the way a pole-mounted camera can — a structural reason Canadian coverage will always understate Canadian ALPR more than US coverage understates US ALPR.
Stricter privacy law
Canadian collection and retention of plate data sits under federal and provincial privacy legislation, and provincial privacy commissioners have issued findings on ALPR programmes. That is a real difference from the US position, where the governing rule is largely that a plate on a public road carries no reasonable expectation of privacy. None of this is legal advice.
Far fewer mappers
The US dataset exists because a volunteer community set out to build it. Canada has not had the same effort, which is the single biggest reason these numbers look the way they do. If you want that to change, adding cameras to OpenStreetMap is how.
Common questions
Are there Flock cameras in Canada?
Flock Safety is a US company and its network is overwhelmingly American, but ALPR (automated license plate reader) cameras are used in Canada by police services and private operators, and some Canadian agencies have trialled or deployed Flock hardware. FlockScanner documents 627 ALPR camera locations in Canada, across 7 provinces and territories, sourced from OpenStreetMap volunteers. By comparison, 138,636 are documented in the United States.
Is there a Flock camera map for Canada?
Yes. FlockScanner maps 627 documented ALPR camera locations in Canada on the same public map as its US coverage, broken down by province and, where enough cameras are documented, by city. The data comes from OpenStreetMap and refreshes nightly. Canadian coverage is far thinner than American coverage, so treat it as a starting point rather than a survey.
Why is Canadian coverage so much thinner than US coverage?
Three reasons compound. Flock Safety's deployment is concentrated in the United States, so there is simply less Flock hardware in Canada. Canadian ALPR tends to be operated by police services using other vendors, often vehicle-mounted rather than fixed to poles, and mobile readers have no fixed location to map. And the volunteer OpenStreetMap effort that produced the US dataset has had far less uptake in Canada. Thin coverage here is a statement about mapping, not a clean bill of health.
Are ALPR cameras legal in Canada?
Yes, but under a materially different legal framework from the United States. Canadian police services use ALPR, and provincial and federal privacy legislation — including PIPEDA and provincial privacy statutes — applies to the collection and retention of the data in ways US law generally does not. Provincial privacy commissioners have issued findings on ALPR use, and retention periods and permitted uses are more constrained in several provinces. This is a general description, not legal advice.
How can I add Canadian Flock cameras to the map?
The same way the US coverage was built: by tagging them in OpenStreetMap. A camera is recorded as a node with man_made=surveillance and surveillance:type=ALPR, optionally with the manufacturer and the compass direction it faces. FlockScanner reads OpenStreetMap nightly, so anything added appears here within about a day. FlockScanner does not accept direct submissions — the data lives in OpenStreetMap, where anyone can verify or correct it.
Related
- What is a Flock camera?
- What does a Flock camera look like?
- US Flock camera map by state
- What Flock surveillance is
Camera location data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the Open Database License (ODbL).
Canadian place names and coordinates from GeoNames, used under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.