Published Aug. 19, 2026

In August 2026, a rumor spread that a fashion designer was creating shirts designed to confuse automated license plate readers, such as Flock cameras.

Several posts on social media shared the claim, including on Facebook, Instagram and X. One post on X said a designer and "cybersecurity professional" named Kate Rose had created the shirts (archived):

The posts all included an image of a man in a covered parking lot with his back to the camera. He wore a black shirt with fake license plate numbers and letters, some of which were framed in purple rectangles. Words in yellow at the bottom of the image read "A fashion designer is feeding Flock cameras junk data using clothes covered in fake plates."

In short, it was true that a designer and digital security expert named Kate Bertash had created these clothes as part of a line named Adversarial Fashion, which she first presented in 2019. However, the website said they had not been for sale since 2023, though it said to "stay tuned for re-release" without providing a date. For this reason, we rated the claim a mixture of true and false information. 

We reached out to Bertash to ask if and when the line would go back on sale. We will update this report should she respond. 

Bertash first presented the line at the DEF CON27 hacking conference in 2019. In a session posted on YouTube, she said she "to help organizations that do social good work to get the kind of technology and security resources that they need day to day" (at 0:36):

Bertash added that she also liked to design and sell "novelty fabrics," in part for children. The session was dedicated in part to teaching viewers to create and print novelty fabrics to counter mass surveillance systems. 

After outlining some of the surveillance systems to counter (including facial recognition, thermal cameras and automated license plate readers), Bertash presented examples, including blankets designed to block the heat signature recognizable on thermal cameras, or makeup designed to confound facial recognition systems.

At the 11:58 mark in the video, Bertash presented some of her ideas to counter ALPRs, including the shirt in the photo that was widely shared in August 2026, as well as a dress. The slide included a website address, AdversarialFashion.com. 

Bertash then shared a video from an ALPR camera as it attempted to register some of the fake license plates on the shirt and the dress.

The website showed that the clothing line had received wide media coverage between 2019 and 2021, including from Vice, The New Yorker and The Financial Times, but that it had not been on sale since 2023. "Stay tuned for a re-release!" the page read.

For further reading, Snopes has examined several claims about Flock cameras, including the rumor that a Texas sheriff's deputy had used data from 83,000 Flock cameras to try to find a woman who had an abortion.

By Anna Rascouët-Paz