Add a missing license plate camera, or fix a wrong pin

Is it a plate reader? The tag you are about to use says the device reads license plates, and the OpenStreetMap wiki names devices that should not get it, Flock Safety’s gunshot detector among them.^⁠[1] If you are unsure, read Is that a Flock camera? first.

Is it already mapped? Look up the address on Near me, or find the spot on the map. Then look again inside the editor: this site’s copy of OpenStreetMap is refreshed once a week, so a newer pin shows there first.

Write these down on the spot, not from memory.

• The exact position. Which corner, which side of the road, and what the camera is fixed to: a pole of its own, a street light, a traffic signal.
• The heading. The compass bearing the lens points along or, failing that, the road it looks down and in which direction. See Which way a plate camera points.
• The date.
• The maker, only if the hardware is unmistakable.
• The operator, only if you know it for certain, for instance from a public record that names it.^⁠[1]

Both write to OpenStreetMap, and both need a free OpenStreetMap account.^⁠[2]⁠[3]

In a browser: the OpenStreetMap editor

The editor built into openstreetmap.org is called iD, and it opens with a walkthrough the first time you use it.^⁠[4] These steps follow DeFlock’s instructions for it.^⁠[3]

1. Sign up or sign in at openstreetmap.org, search for the place, zoom in close and click Edit.
2. Click Point, then click the map exactly where the camera stands. Keep it a standalone point: DeFlock says not to join it to a road, a building or any other object.^⁠[3]
3. Tell the editor what the point is (DeFlock’s page skips this): search the list of feature types for Surveillance and choose the entry called just that.^⁠[5]
4. Open Tags below the fields, switch to the text view, and paste in the tags from the next section, changed to match what you saw.^⁠[3]
5. Check the Direction field: use its arrows to turn the cone drawn on the map until it lies along the road the lens watches.^⁠[3]
6. Click Save, write a line saying what you added and that you saw it in person, and upload.^⁠[3]

On a phone: the DeFlock app

DeFlock, an open-source project that maps plate readers through OpenStreetMap, publishes an app for iOS and Android.^⁠[2] Tap New Node, drag the map until the pin sits on the camera, set the direction with a slider, pick a device profile (Flock Safety, Motorola/Vigilant, Genetec and Leonardo/ELSAG are built in) and submit.^⁠[2]

It uploads under your own OpenStreetMap account. That can take more than an hour, its guide warns, so check your changesets on OpenStreetMap before sending a camera twice.^⁠[2]

A plate reader is one point carrying the tags below. The first five are the core. The OpenStreetMap wiki’s baseline pairs the plate reader tag with the other four, and every set DeFlock gives out to copy contains all five.^⁠[1]⁠[3]

The same set as one block for the editor’s text view. The first five lines suit a reader on a public street; the last four are one mapper’s observations, so replace each with your own or delete the line.

man_made=surveillance
surveillance:type=ALPR
surveillance=public
surveillance:zone=traffic
camera:type=fixed
camera:mount=pole
direction=220
manufacturer=Flock Safety
check_date=2026-10-01

Worldwide, Taginfo’s count of October 1, 2026 finds a direction, a camera type, a zone and a maker each on roughly nine in ten objects tagged as plate readers, a mount on about three in ten and an operator on fewer than two in ten.^⁠[10] A pin with no operator is normal.

Leave out any tag you are not sure of. Watch direction above all: zero means due north, so a 0 left in the field records a heading nobody took.^⁠[8]

Among the mistakes the wiki flags: the maker’s name under brand or operator, where manufacturer belongs, and a point named after the product.^⁠[1]

• A guess. No maker unless the hardware is unmistakable, and no operator unless you know it. In the DeFlock app that means the Generic profile when you cannot tell who built the camera.^⁠[2]
• A camera you did not see yourself. OpenStreetMap asks for data another mapper could go and confirm.^⁠[11] DeFlock’s guide is blunter: submit only what you can personally verify, and do not work from Google Street View.^⁠[2] A pin placed from memory, a news story or somebody else’s map fails that test.
• Personal information. No names of residents or owners and no plate numbers, in a tag, a note or the line describing your edit. The wiki’s privacy guidance says not to record who lives in a home or who owns a property, and to leave data out when in doubt.^⁠[12]
• Anything indoors or behind a gate. If the camera cannot be seen from public ground, the next mapper cannot check it either.^⁠[11] A reader watching the way into an apartment complex, in plain view from the street, is a different case: tag it surveillance=outdoor and surveillance:zone=entrance.^⁠[1]

Select the pin on the map and follow the link in its panel to the same point in OpenStreetMap, then open it in the editor. Make the smallest change that puts it right.

• Wrong place. Move the point to where the camera stands.
• Wrong heading. Correct the Direction field. If the pin also carries a camera:direction tag, correct that too: this site reads it in preference to direction.
• Wrong details. Fix the tag. If the device is another kind of surveillance equipment, change surveillance:type to what it is: the wiki documents camera and gunshot_detector, among others.^⁠[6]
• Right, and still there. Add check_date with the day you looked: the key records when something was last confirmed to exist.^⁠[9]

Gone. Go and look first. Then follow the wiki’s lifecycle guidance: keep the point, but put removed: in front of its keys (removed:man_made=surveillance, removed:surveillance:type=ALPR), so that nobody maps the camera again from an out-of-date source, and delete the point once that danger has passed.^⁠[13]

Prefix surveillance:type as well as man_made: a point that keeps a plain surveillance:type=ALPR stays on this site. The prefix is for hardware somebody has taken away,^⁠[13] so a camera still on its pole stays mapped, however idle it looks.

In the DeFlock app, picking a profile during an edit replaces the pin’s existing tags, its guide notes, so use the web editor to change a single tag.^⁠[2]

A note is a public comment pinned to a spot on OpenStreetMap for volunteer mappers to act on.^⁠[14]

1. Go to openstreetmap.org and zoom in on the spot.
2. Right-click it and choose Add a note here, or use the Add a note to the map button on the map’s right.^⁠[14]
3. Move the marker onto the camera’s position.
4. Say what is missing or wrong, and how you know. For example: “License plate camera on its own pole at the northeast corner, facing south along Elm Street. Seen from the sidewalk on October 1, 2026. Not on the map.”

No account is needed, but signing in first gets you an email when a mapper replies or closes the note.^⁠[14] Anyone can read a note, and the form itself asks you to leave personal information out.^⁠[15] A note changes nothing by itself: a volunteer still has to make the edit, so be precise.

Your edit is in OpenStreetMap as soon as it uploads, and each map built on that data catches up on its own schedule. DeFlock puts the wait for its map at as much as an hour.^⁠[3] Locate Flock, which covers the United States only, rebuilds its data once a week, so look for your pin here after the next refresh.

This site keeps no edited copy of the data, so a pin cannot be added, moved or removed here: the change has to be made in OpenStreetMap, as corrections sets out. Once your pin arrives, it is part of the data behind every Near me search and the distances that How close is the nearest plate camera? reports.