WHAT THE FLOCK?

My county has recently added speed cameras to several school zones where speeding can be an issue due to the roads at the sites. No problem with that. In a related matter, an attorney recently won a case in DC over the accuracy of their speed cameras. Gonna be some citations cancelled.

In one of his books, novelist John Sanford had LAPD tracking suspects through the streets using license plate readers. A big part of my job my in my last working years was monitoring electronic access control and surveillance systems. There’s what people think the systems can do and what they actually can do. What software developers think is important/useful and real world need can also be an issue. One of the needful things we lost with a new system was the ability to verify the access control computer’s record keeping accuracy (Why would you need that? In wide-eyed wonder.)

Then there’s the issues of possible abuse of the systems, in the novel noted above, the bad guys also had a source in LAPD.

There are places where such monitoring would be appropriate. But given LLEA response time to alerts in many cases the money might be better spent on staffing. We don’t need surveillance as shown in Minority Report where there were retinal scanners everywhere. Just to illustrate the absurdity of some of this, there is apparently a proposal to reduce airport screening. Only those who are actually getting on a plane will be screened.

Yeah, people are SO emotional for the wrong reasons!!!!!!!!!! When I was campaigning for office, they were locked into something and SO opinionated over being educated. If an officer abuses this, like other things, fire his ass!

Every little bit of privacy we give up for the lie of “NEEDED SECURITY” is an invitation to tyrants of all ilks. I have already heard horror stories of innocents being caught up in these evil AI driven traps.

The Flock camera, like most anything, including guns, cans be used for good or evil. They are license plate readers, nothing more, and they can be used or abused by LEO using their already available data bases.
The police can run your tag at any time, your tag is owned by the state, it’s not yours. The Flock cameras are not tracking you independently, but they could be used that way.
I think most of the hoopla against Flock is being perpetuated by their competitors.

I have read “1984” several times. I do not support anything that makes it easier for Big Brother to spy on us, regardless of their supposed crime solving potential. The risks for Flock’s misuse far outweigh any purported benefit to “law” Enforcement by those in control. FLOCK brings to mind communist China’s surveillance/contol systems.
I think most of our founded fathers would agree they have no place in America.

Seems like a 21st century way to get around the 4th amendment restrictions on unreasonable searches

https://www.facebook.com/reel/4086552324932383

I wish that we did not need to have them, but they serve a need.

We live in a fairly affluent neighborhood, which is also home to the Wichita North precinct’s captain. In the last five years, we have had three shootings, one fatal. The fatal one was murder/suicide within the family, so I don’t count that one. The most troubling one involved a New Year’s Eve shooting involving a group of unruly teenagers who showed up at a party, uninvited, after it was advertised on social media. Mom and Dad were away at their own party and left the house to their high school age son. An argument ensued amongst the teens that spilled into the street, a gun was pulled and shots fired. As usual, “Nobody saw nuttin!” Two kids went to the hospital.

Following these events, and to combat the rash of car break-in’s and general petty theft of items left around the house and on our boats (live on a lake development), the neighborhood HOAs voted to install Flock cameras at our two entrances. The number break-in’s has dropped dramatically. They have been a success.

I can quote Ben Franklin as well as any freedom loving gun owner. I don’t wish to trade security for freedom. However, I also see these cameras as useful tools to bring the who do not obey the law to account. It’s also useful in addressing child abductions, missing children, etc. I see them in the same light as one might see a neighborhood “watchman.”

While in St. Louis this last week, I came to stop on a four-lane undivided road for school bus discharging kids with red lights on and stop sign extended. I saw a white pickup truck with trailer (some of construction crew) traveling in the same direction as the school bus on the inside lane just blow right through the stop signs and the stopped bus. I looked closely at the driver as he passed my stopped car. His head was down looking at his mobile phone. I am all for putting cameras on school buses to catch drivers that blow through the red lights/stop signs of these buses.

Can there be abuse? Sure. We’ve seen here in Kansas. However, forgot or do not know just how much information police can already access on your life and history. Not to mention the ability to track your movements through your cell phones, mobile devices, cars with internet, etc. The list is endless. Do we need tighter guardrails, and stronger laws that punish law enforcement when perform unwarranted searches or use these resources as their own personal “Google” search engine. Hell yes!

My opinion might not be the most popular on here, but I have seen the usefulness of these cameras.

My issue isn’t necessarily with the Flock cameras themselves; if a private business wants them recording their parking lot for security purposes, fine.

My issue is that ALL of the footage and AI-powered license plate scans — and car scans, including make/model, color, bumper stickers, damage, etc., a “fingerprint” with which they can identify your car even if the plate is obscured or obstructed — goes into a SINGLE, massive database that police departments can contract (read: pay) to access.

This amounts to a 4th-Amendment-violating dragnet of ALL cars and drivers traversing an area, especially since no warrant is required to search the thing — and in fact, searches have near-zero auditing or accountability.

It would be no different than if (Heaven forbid!) Amazon Ring and Google Nest cameras — both outdoor AND indoor — consolidated all their footage, ran it through AI-powered algorithms to identify vehicles and people and property, and sold access to police departments. At that point, who needs search warrants? Just log in and ask the AI where a person or contraband property was last seen, and the system will tell you.

The locations of (most) cameras don’t necessarily bother me; public roads are where you could, conceivably, place a human officer to record comings and goings for a limited period — and as stated above, private lots are private and if a business wants to monitor it, fine (as much as I’d prefer they use CCTV so LEOs must request or subpoena footage). The issue is that the private-corporation-run, automated system is all-encompassing (i.e. city-leased and private-leased cameras feed into the same database), has no oversight or accountability, does not sleep or rest, and has the processing power to read ALL license plates and vehicle descriptions 24/7/365. No human officer could do this — particularly without a warrant — so I have strong issues with contracting an automated system to do it for them.

Way t oo much syingn on evrryonre

Many restrictions on citizens’ freedom have started out being pitched having a beneficial goal.

Too frequently, those with no interest in Rights manage to turn the program against we citizens.

Need an example? Digital payment methods (e.g., debit cards, credit cards, Apple Pay) are quite convenient. You don’t have to carry cash and interact with store clerks that can’t do math. 😏

Then we in America got Crossfire Hurricane. Protesting Canadian truckers had their accounts frozen. Chinese have “social scores” that control many aspects of daily life.

Not a great endgame.

My main reason for opposing them is Flock cameras don’t do anything to STOP crime. Cops stop crimes. Detectives solve crimes. Flock is akin to a detective and should be subjected to the same burden of proof and constitutional restraints for surveillance.

“But we have access safeguards” they say. Ok. Safeguards to prevent abuse means the data HAS ALREADY been recorded. It also means you’re a one sentence change in the Terms & Agreements from losing those safeguards. Does every dept. in every city/state with flock access run every software and Terms & Agreement update by their IT lawyers?

Also, Flock claims a 7% error rate. They also claim to do 20 Billion scans per month. That is a WHOLE LOT of errors. Errors that can send armed men to arrest you. But, Flock has capped their liability for their own errors no matter what those errors lead to. That liability is capped at what the entity pays for one years access to the system? Insurance companies would go out of business if all commercial accounts’ max liability was 12 months rent.

Again, these AI surveillance systems help detectives not victims. The victim is still hurt/dead. Outside of abductions, Flock didn’t help them one bit. Lame prosecutors ensure the next victim is in the same situation.

I don’t want the next lawfare goon to have access to that tool. Ever. Abuse is all but guaranteed to vastly eclipse the benefit of helping solve a dozen kidnappings these cameras might help investigate across the country. Especially considering most abductions are family related and the abductor is already known.

Rabbi,

As you know, we are already under “surveillance” in many public areas. And cameras in public areas have routinely led to the arrest and conviction of violent criminals. All good there.

Cameras deliberately observing backyards, that’s invasion of privacy and those got to go. How that’s accomplished with state of the art EO/IR sensors stuck on a tower … that’s going to be a growth area for legislation I’d bet.

What I find most entertaining is the near total lack of appreciation for the lack of privacy folks have on line. Gmail is free, “Nextdoor” free … why? Users’ behavior and interests, their purchases and political opinion … all collected so search engines can lead them where google and vendors buying details about you from google and social media apps want you to be led.

That’s the invasion of privacy that’s really damaging.

Having read “1984”, “Anamil Farm”, “Alas Babalon”, and Ray Bradbury’s “Fharenhiet 451” , I’m against their use but we’ve been tracker in less open ways for years so I guess this is just the next stage. Heck, you can’t even shoot a drone out of the sky when it is peaking in your bedroom windows now. Not that I would ever consider doing such a thing.

If they start using them to track criminal aliens that are given state driver’s licenses, see who complains and approves. I bet the sides would flip flop.

I have no desire to live in a surveillance state. Flock vastly understates all the misuses of their system and greatly overstates their “successes.” 1984 was not a training manual and the entire Flock system needs to be dismantled with the company going bankrupt. Just sayin…

There is no “right to privacy” when out in public ~~ but this was understood that you could be SEEN and even PHOTOGRAPHED without consent.
Combining that into a database, retaining those records for future access, making it searchable for any number of criteria now goes far beyond “being seen” and is now “being surveilled and tracked”.

It would not be a reach to consider this being used by an administration to track and compile dossiers on anyone who doesn’t toe the political line. Current opponents of Trump should fear this; past opponents of Biden feared this; and anyone opposed to WHOEVER the next administration should fear this.

This creeps ever closer to the Social Scoring system used in China to suppress the people of that government. Once government gains powers, it seldom relinquishes them without a fight ~ be careful what we let in.

It isn’t just the cameras, it is the collection of wireless data from the vehicles themselves and Bluetooth and Wireless devices in the vehicles and on the occupants.

https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-cameras/other-alpr-vendors

When I was in law enforcement, having access to the above data could certainly help me solve some missing person cases much faster and be helpful in working criminal cases. It would have also been a tool that would have been misused and even flatly abused. Right before I was hired an officer was fired for misusing local data (I got his locker). During my time at the agency at least two officers were caught misusing data for personal reasons (Those are just the ones that I know of). And after I left a couple more got caught. These are just the ones that got caught at a small agency. This was before ALPR and wireless data capture.

Steve Jobs was known for having small temporary registration paper tags on his personal vehicle and no license plates. He would keep buying the same make/model of vehicle and using the temporary registration tags to legally avoid having license plates. He was aware of the privacy issues a long time ago. California now has paper printed license plates that are issued immediately and remove some of that legal capability.

I am extremely suspicious of anything that is pushed using lines similar to “For the safety of women, children, and elderly…”.

Databases get hacked. Databases get breached. Databases leak. Databases get unlawfully abused. Things that were legal yesterday become illegal tomorrow.

I opt out as much as possible. My vehicles are very very common. My phones and devices are kept off and in faraday bags quite a bit. They are for my convenience, no one else. My license plates might get dirtier than others. I will do everything that I can do to hinder this technology. I do not approve.

To access the databases should require a senior supervisor to approve. Logs should be audited. Anyone misusing the data should lose their job, pension, and face criminal and civil penalties. Data retention should be under 30 days. Data should not be shared nationwide. When databases breaches take place, anyone whose data got released should be generously compensated by the government for the agency. Generously. Make it hurt!

I say F*ck Flock and similar. Don’t “Byte” me. I bite back.

[Yawn] They read license plates.
With all the doorbell, security, and dashcam cameras, plus everybody videoing everything remotely interesting, they’re the least intrusive ones around.

Someone said “They are license plate readers, nothing more, ” and “With all the doorbell, security, and dashcam cameras… they’re the least intrusive ones around.”

But see, that’s where they’re wrong. This is either ignorance or simple dismissiveness in order to justify their use.

They are cameras, yes, and the cameras can capture still images, and limited amounts of video. The pole mounted devices do posses limited ALPR capability, but those images are then sent to Flock’s data center where they are processed using AI techniques. From there, not only are license plate numbers are determined, but make, model, color of vehicle, any identifying marks like decals or damage is detected and recorded. All of that information is then organized into a single large, easily queryable, database. The CEO of Flock has said the flock cameras are easily (and freely), if not somewhat limited, able to livestream video.

This technology is still at the neophyte stage. What the backend processing is capable of will only further grow. And while Flock has ‘data retention policies’, they are just that, policies. And the implementation of those policies is largely opaque.

Recall the outrage when Ring announced the capability to coordinate all their doorbell cameras to find ‘lost dogs’. It’s not just the cameras, it’s the dataset that is created and the ability to exploit that.

With any new law or technology, ask not what its benefit is, but ask how it can be abused.

Whenever people compain about the dangers of the UK ‘surveillance society’ I ask for examples of when an innocent person has been harmed by it. No one has ever produced one.

Finding bad people harmed by it is easy:
Britains biggest gold robbers; the Hatton Garden Heist ones. Britains biggest drugs dealer; Curtis Warren and Carlos the Jackal were all caught because someone used their own car.
Always seems hilarious in ‘The First 48’ when they catch killers using their cars. It’s a billboard advertising your presence.
If you don’t want to be found; buy bus tickets for cash. And with facial recognition; that won’t be enough for long.
njk

Slightly off topic: Ben Franklin would be horrified if he saw all the electronic gizmos in our cars, all intended to do things properly trained drivers do. Now we could, make it harder to get drivers licenses, but……………………

Question of (mis) trust.

Flock cameras are like the worst HOA imaginable that enforces it’s codes with automated drones flying over your property and blindly issuing tickets for any infractions that violate any sentence in the 50 page HOA agreement.

Yeah, Bob always lets his grass grow too long. But, do you want a LIDAR equipped drone measuring your grass when you are on a 10 day vacation next summer? Or ticket your boat trailer for extending 3 inches past the boundary between your side yard and front yard? Or, the school bus mounted camera issuing tickets to everyone in the neighborhood that left their trash cans out an extra 12 hours because there was a monsoon drenching the neighborhood when everyone got home from work last night?

That’s where we’re headed. City governments view them as a a new revenue source.

From an article in Wired, today, 9/16/2026:
Hacked Data Shows Just What Flock Cameras Are Really Recording

Even America’s smallest cities are under a close eye. The Flock cameras in Alpharetta, Georgia—which has a population of nearly 67,000 people—are accessible to more than 2,000 agencies, according to another WIRED report. Those entities included police departments, colleges, airports, as well as the federal General Services Administration’s Office of Inspector General.

The Police Union doesn’t like their department IA Unit using Flock on officer’s under investigation….

https://therecord.media/dc-police-union-opposes-flock-camera-use-probing-officers

2+2=5

How about Flock camera data being recorded and made PUBLIC of the travels (and contacts) of every POLITICIAN in office.

I bet that would stop their spread.

1) Congress critters want exemption from being monitored.
2) DC cops want exemption from being monitored.

I think the above shows enough endangerment to privacy to shut down any government use of these images without a warrant, and regulations prohibiting any sharing by Flock with any third party absent a warrant.

With respect to the argument that there’s no expectation of privacy in public, I strongly disagree. Attempts to surveil the public are steps on the road to an authoritarian society.

Kurt

Elmer Fudd said he was going to “get dat kwazy wabbit,” but never did. Bugs Bunny was simply guaranteed to get away. The system needed him too much.

I’mma just drop this here and hope the comment section isn’t totally dead yet: How Cities are Forced to Funnel License Plate Data to a Massive Federal Surveillance Program

TL;DR: The federal government is leveraging an anti-drug-trafficking measure — the “High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area” (HIDTA) program — from the 80s to force cities that contract with Flock, Axon, and other vendors to provide their ALPR data to a massive federal database accessible by pretty much all federal agencies. It applies even if the cameras are NOT posted in a “high-intensity” area, and federal access is granted even to agencies that don’t have contracts with Flock, Axon, or whoever else.

As a reminder, once in their hands, it’s searchable without a warrant, subpoena, or any other 4th Amendment protections. And if they get the raw photos — not just the data — there’s no limit to the “AI-powered analyses” they can run to scrape more “data” from the system. The “it’s just a license plate reader” system can watch the comings and goings from any front door within view and run facial recognition to see who’s visiting who. (All those cops who were using their access to watch their ex-lovers’ new significant others’ vehicles, could identify exactly who is visiting the home, not just what vehicles are in the area. What could possibly go wrong?)

Again — because it bears repeating — all without a warrant, subpoena, or any other 4th Amendment protection.

This should scare the ever-loving hell out of anyone who values Constitutional rights.