Free Republic

CLEVELAND, Ga. – A privately owned Flock Safety camera positioned to monitor the parking lot of a White County gun store is being removed after growing concerns over automated license plate reader technology left some customers worried about their privacy. Michael Carter, owner of Gun Commanders on U.S. 129 in Cleveland, told Now Georgia the camera was installed roughly two years ago for one purpose: to help protect his employees, customers, and business from crime. Carter privately owns the camera, not the White County Sheriff’s Office. According to Carter, it was configured to send hit-list notifications to the sheriff’s office...

The debate over Flock Safety cameras divides people in a way that almost nothing else does in technology policy. Those who have had a car stolen tend to love them. Those who study constitutional law tend to hate them. Both are reacting to something real. This is an independent analysis of what these systems actually do, what the evidence says about their accuracy and misuse, and why the most important question is not whether cameras can photograph public streets — it is whether the government should build a searchable, warrantless database of everyone’s movements. This topic generated significant public discussion...

Police using Flock Safety’s artificial intelligence tools can now track a vehicle based only on its location and movements. Flock’s OS Investigate, formerly known as Nightshift, is an AI tool that identifies vehicles and ranks drivers’ “associates” based on how frequently they appear together at the same Flock camera, WIRED reported. Flock website code reviewed by WIRED listed 45 functions available to OS Investigate, including plate scans, camera metadata, arrest records, case files and 911 dispatch logs to identify potential suspects. “[T]his [Flock tool] really crosses a line from a tool that’s used to investigate suspicious people to deciding who...

Flock cameras are in thousands of communities across the country and often hide in plain sight. A Flock camera is an automated license plate reader, or ALPR, made by the public-safety technology company Flock Safety. The cameras are commonly installed along roads, at intersections, near neighborhood entrances, and around businesses or other private properties.

There is probably a camera on a pole at the entrance to your neighborhood. You’ve probably stopped noticing it. It is small, solar-powered, unremarkable, and it photographs every car that passes: yours, your neighbor’s, your teenager’s. And it reads the license plate, logs the time, and files the record in a national database. The company that owns it is called Flock Safety. Founded in 2017, valued at $7.5 billion, it now operates in more than 5,000 communities across 49 states, and its network scans roughly 20 billion vehicles a month. Twenty billion. Each month. For perspective, there are about...

New Gallup data show that people are growing increasingly distrustful of major technology companies such as Meta, Apple, and Google, as well as a newer player in the surveillance industry, Flock Safety. Some people are even taking matters into their own hands by destroying the AI-powered surveillance cameras appearing in communities across the country. Flock Safety, a private surveillance technology company founded in 2017, has been earning a reputation as a herald of the much-feared Orwellian “surveillance state.” Although a private company, Flock’s business model operates by selling AI-powered camera and audio detection systems to local and state governments for...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP/Atlanta News First) — One of the nation’s leading operators of automated license-plate reading systems announced Monday it has paused its operations with federal agencies because of confusion and concern about the purpose of their investigations. The Atlanta-based Flock Safety, whose cameras are mounted in more than 4,000 communities nationwide, put a hold last week on pilot programs with the Department of Homeland Security’s Customs and Border Protection and its law enforcement arm, Homeland Security Investigations, according to a statement by its founder and CEO, Garrett Langley. Flock Safety’s cameras capture billions of photos of license plates each...

A national mass surveillance system boosted by artificial intelligence (AI) took root in another state. The town council of Jackson, Wyoming, agreed in a close vote last month to install the 30 solar-powered license plate recognition (LPR) cameras along their streets and traffic lights, which feeds into a centralized surveillance system managed by the private company Flock Safety. The town is the first in the state of Wyoming to install the cameras. Council members who agreed to the measure expressed reluctance with their decision. Councilman Jonathan Schechter indicated his belief that the cameras marked a negative trend down an undesirable...

At the February 7 Pontotoc Aldermen meeting Pontotoc Police Chief Randy Tutor addressed concerns and assured a small group of residents that the police department’s soon to be installed Flock Safety cameras would be used solely to fight crime and bolster safety and not invade or spy on the privacy of Pontotoc residents. At the January 17 board meeting Pontotoc Aldermen voted unanimously to approve a two year subscription contract with Flock Safety Inc. for operation of eight of their license plate reader cameras in the city of Pontotoc. Pontotoc County resident Adam Miller and Pontotoc resident Kyle Eubank addressed...