New York Democrats are using Nassau County's network of license-plate-reading cameras to challenge Bruce Blakeman's public-safety record as he runs for governor. The party criticized the county executive Monday after a report counted more than 330 publicly mapped Flock Safety cameras on Nassau roads.
The party's Sept. 28 statement drew on a New York Post report that analyzed locations compiled by DeFlock, a volunteer project tracking camera installations. The report said Nassau has about one mapped camera for every 9.5 miles of its more than 3,200 miles of road. The figure reflects publicly mapped cameras, not a complete official inventory.
The Post put Nassau among the top 100 U.S. counties for mapped Flock cameras per mile and within the top 3% by that measure. Those rankings come from the newspaper's analysis of the DeFlock map; they do not establish how often police search the system or whether a particular search is improper.
Flock cameras record passing vehicles and can capture license plates and other identifying features. Law enforcement agencies can search the resulting database to help identify or trace vehicles, according to the Post's description of the system.
The newspaper also reported that Nassau agreed to a $1 million Flock deal last year, citing a recording of a November 2025 county legislative meeting. Its report did not specify how many cameras that purchase covered, so the contract cannot be assumed to account for all the cameras on the volunteer map.
State Democratic Party spokesperson Addison Dick criticized Blakeman's support for the technology and framed the Nassau program as an issue in his gubernatorial campaign. The party's statement did not announce a new surveillance policy or describe a proposal affecting other New York counties.
Blakeman told the Post that Flock is “an important tool in law enforcement.” He also said Nassau has guidelines meant to protect privacy and prevent misuse. The party's release did not include a new response from his campaign to its Monday criticism.
Blakeman is the Republican candidate for governor. The dispute centers on how his administration uses the cameras in Nassau County, not on a camera deployment announced for the Finger Lakes.
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