At least 10 local governments and police departments have moved since this summer to curb, restrict, or end their use of Flock Safety technology as concerns about mass surveillance and data privacy continue to grow. The backlash is part of a broader pushback against the rapid adoption of advanced AI technology, including the data center buildout, facial recognition, and other uses of AI.
Flock, founded in 2017, sells surveillance software — like license plate readers, drones, and microphone-based edge-computing devices to pick up gunshots and other sounds — that can help solve crimes, such as finding missing people or stolen cars. More than 100,000 Flock cameras are in use nationwide.
But in the past three months, Monroe, Ohio; Newburgh, New York; Richmond, Virginia; Hopkinton, Massachusetts; New Bedford, Massachusetts; and Lansing, Michigan, have all moved to end their contracts with Flock. Meanwhile, police in East Bridgewater and Grafton, Massachusetts, also announced plans to stop using Flock cameras. Just this week, residents of League City, Texas, voted against their police department’s continued use of Flock’s license plate readers, and the cameras are now set to be removed.
The concerns range from privacy to how data is shared (and with whom) to procurement concerns.
In Asheville, North Carolina, police lost access to Flockafter the city voted to terminate its contract in August, and the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado announced inSeptember that it would stop using Flock cameras. When asked for comment, the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office redirected TechCrunch to its press release, where Sheriff Joseph Roybal said that discontinuing the use of Flock was the right decision for the county.
“We have the tools, training, and experience to locate and apprehend criminals without relying on Flock cameras,” he said in the press release.
Tatiana Rice, a senior director for U.S. legislation at The Future of Privacy Forum, told TechCrunch that the backlash to Flock isn’t surprising and only further represents the “growing public skepticism toward technology.” Flock is a target because people can see the sensors and cameras as they drive along roads; data centers have also become physical embodiments of the resentment growing against emerging technology. “A camera at the end of your street is tangible in a way that everyday sharing and selling of personal data online is not,” Rice said.
At the state level this summer, for example, Florida barred license plate readersfrom state highways, while Texas paused state funding for Flock. The issues again range from data privacy concerns to misuse of the technology.
Misuse has been a real problem. In August, for example, an officer in Brentwood, Missouri was accused of using Flock cameras to stalk his ex-wife during their divorce. In September, an officer from East Texas was sentenced to prison for using Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her family.
Another growing concern is how immigration officials have been able to access the technology. One case that captures the issue came in March, when Ithaca, New York, passed a resolution to terminate its contract with the Flock Group.
In the resolution, the city said there were “proven instances of Flock Safety infrastructure being used by federal agents for information purposes even without specific authorizations from the contracting locality,” and that the city had reviewed reports that “either intentionally or through its negligence,” Flock had allowed U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to “use query results from its database of state and local ALPR [automatic license plate reader] data to investigate and persecute immigrants throughout the United States.”
“Every day, police departments across the country are using Flock technology to solve serious crimes, locate suspects, find missing people, and make a measurable impact on public safety,” Flock told TechCrunch in a statement. “While we respect every community’s decision, removing a tool that is actively helping solve violent crimes and protect communities moves public safety backward. Every Flock customer owns its data and controls who it is shared with and how it can be used. Flock does not sell data and does not have a contract with ICE.”
This August, Flockannounced it would shorten the default period it stores data for new customers, from 30 days to seven. It also said agencies now need a case code before they can search the database.
The conversation around Flock echoes, in many ways, the fight overdata centers.Many of these cities adopted Flock just a few years ago, and residents likely had no idea it was being installed, Adam Schwartz of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy nonprofit that has investigated Flock before, told TechCrunch.
That lack of awareness is similar to how data centers are popping up across the country, often before residents understand what is happening. Schwartz said police departments often decide to use Flock on their own, with little oversight from city councils. In South Windsor, Connecticut, according to local reports, Flock cameras went live last year without public warning or a vote. In October, the town voted to removeits Flock cameras.
“Grassroots activists across the country have been demanding that city councils exercise their procurement power to refuse to pay for ALPRs,” Schwartz said, referring to councils’ power to decide what the city buys. He added that activists have been fighting for years and that “many city councils are listening.”
The main argument for technology like Flock is that it helps combat crime and keep neighborhoods safe. And many local governments are not dropping Flock or similar technology; instead, they are adding restrictions on its use or looking for alternatives.
Cleveland, Ohio, for example, voted this summer to extend its contract with Flock, but has started restricting searches related to immigration. It has also limited access to the database to the Cleveland Police alone, cutting off the Northeast Ohio Regional Fusion Center, essentially a federal intelligence agency, which had initially been given access.
“They are used and needed for investigative purposes,” the city said when reached for comment. “The Department of Public Safety is currently reviewing responses to an RFP [request for proposals] that was sent out to other vendors that provide the same technology as Flock.”
But as with data centers, communities want more say in the trade-offs. “These tools can offer real public safety benefits, but communities are clearly interested in ensuring that those benefits are not at the cost of their civil liberties,” Rice said. Surveillance technology will likely remain a political hot topic, especially since Democrats now control Congress.
In September, President Donald Trump said he liked Flock’s technology “because of law enforcement,” even though a Reuters poll that same month found that more Americans dislike the technology than like it.
Also that month, Rep. Thomas Massie, a Republican from Kentucky, introduced a bill called the Flock-Off Act to bar the use of federal money to buy “Flock-style surveillance” and put other safeguards in place. In October, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) introduced the Ban Flock Act to end “the rise of AI-powered surveillance cameras.”
Source: techcrunch.com
