The fight over Flock and other ALPRs

There are over 120,000 of Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras installed all over the US. Flock’s cameras, and others like them, use AI to identify and track vehicles based on their license plate number, make, model, color, and other info, networked together to track vehicles and people’s movements throughout the day and across the country.

Dozens of communities have canceled contracts for the cameras or turned them off, including Los Angeles, as officials have pushed for more limits on the data they collect, who has access to it, and how it can be used in the future. Earlier this year, Amazon-owned Ring canceled a partnership with Flock after online backlash.

Surveillance tech company Flock is rolling out updates to address reports of cops across the country abusing its tools to stalk ex-romantic partners and others. CEO Garrett Langley is delivering a mea culpa, and in an interview with - The Verge, says he’s changed his mind on what responsibility Flock bears for how law enforcement uses it.- Over the coming weeks, Flock will begin implementing updates that include requiring a previously optional feature called Audit Assistance, which flags “abnormal search behavior” and immediately locks out suspicious users until an administrator reviews their activity. All users will also be required to enter case codes to run searches, ideally limiting the ability to run a query for personal or nefarious purposes. This can be overridden by an administrator for emergency situations, like tracking a missing child, but those will automatically be flagged for review. Read Article >
Flock cameras? Target practice.As BoingBoingnotes, a Tennessee candidatefor Congresswas charged for four counts of felony vandalism for allegedly shooting up Flock cameras. The Blount County sheriff’s office says the suspect admitted to shooting the “ALPR systems” over about a week in July. To say these systems are unpopular is becoming an understatement.
Another grim portent for our AI policing future.Joel Feder at The Drivereported a frightening story about how Flock cameras, recently suspended by the LAPD, tracked him in Minnesota and sent police after him over “stolen plates.” (They were not.) Flock says its cameras worked “correctly” in the lead-up to a potentially deadly incident. But here we are in our new era of computer policing.
The LAPD has suspended its use of Flock’s license plate readers, for now.Over the weekend, the three-year deal for Flock Safety’s 138 pole-mounted surveillance cameras came to an end, as the LA Timesreports the LAPD CIO says it ended the arrangement while working on a new contract that has “very clear terms” about who owns the data collected and what happens to it.An unnamed spokesperson for Flock told media outlets that unspecified “misconceptions” led to the pause.
On Thursday, the Instagram account for a lecture series in Newport Beach, CA posted a photo of what appeared to be a cease and desist letter from the surveillance technology company Flock Safety. Flock has received significant backlash over its technology and work with law enforcement agencies, and this letter kicked off yet another wave of criticism against the company for allegedly trying to shut down discussions of its work. - “WE WILL NOT BE SILENCED,” the group, The Saturday Salon, wrote in the Instagram post, which has more than 3,000 likes. A separate post about the letter on Bluesky has more than 360 reposts. The text of the letter demands that the group stop hosting conversations about Flock’s surveillance technology. In a DM from The Saturday Salon’s Instagram account, Schuyler Lifschultz tells Read Article >- The Vergethat it “found this letter taped to our front door.”
The all-too-predictable Flock stalking problem.A report from 404 Mediashows how more than a dozen cases around the US have shown police using Flock to illegally stalk victims. Flock acknowledged it’s aware of 15 incidents, claiming“each surfaced because of the transparency and accountability features deliberately built into our platform.”But that doesn’t reflect how some victims only found out by using the HaveIBeenFlocked.com website that Flock has tried to have taken down, or the many years of similar reports with other surveillance tech, a problem the NSA tagged “LOVEINT.”
The most striking thing about Ring’s statement that it had parted ways with Flock Safety is what the home security company didn’t say. There was no mention of the public backlash around ties to ICE, or any promise to address users’ concerns about the company’s relationships with law enforcement. - In an increasingly authoritarian political climate, the threat of mass surveillance fueled by AI-powered cameras is what many people fear. Yet Ring’s statement made no attempt to address this. Instead, the company claims it canceled Flock’s integration with its Community Requests tool because it would “require significantly more time and resources than anticipated.” Read Article >
Flock is “pausing further exploration of a potential partnership with Ring.”After Ring announced that it had canceled integration with Flock Safety, the law enforcement technology company criticized for connections to ICE (a claim it denies) has released it’s own statement and blog post: Over the past several months, Flock and Ring explored whether their respective platforms could responsibly complement one another in support of public safety. Throughout those discussions, Flock engaged extensively with customers, public officials, and community stakeholders to understand expectations around accountability, transparency, and lawful use. Based on that engagement, Flock and Ring have chosen to cancel the planned integration.
Following intense backlash to its partnership with Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company that works with law enforcement agencies, Ring has announced it is canceling the integration. - In a statement published on Ring’s blog and provided to Read Article >- The Vergeahead of publication, the company said: “Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated. We therefore made the joint decision to cancel the integration and continue with our current partners … The integration never launched, so no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety.”
The livestreams connected to more than 60 of Flock’s AI-powered surveillance cameras were left available to view on the web, allowing someone to see live feeds of each location without needing a username or password, according to findings from tech YouTuber Benn Jordan and - 404 Media.- Flock is a technology company that works with thousands of law enforcement agencies and businesses to deploy a network of AI-powered cameras across the country. It also recently partnered with Ring, giving Flock customers the ability to request footage from users in Ring’s Neighbors app. As noted by Read Article >- 404 Media, many of Flock’s cameras are made to scan a vehicle’s license plates. However, the feeds exposed to the internet connect to Flock’s Condor cameras, which can pan, tilt, and zoom to automatically track people and vehicles.
AI annotators overseas may be reviewing Flock license plate camera footage from the US.An exposed dataset from the license plate surveillance company Flock, which is known to work with the US Border Patrol and ICE via local police, showed that some of the AI annotators paid to classify American license plates are located in the Philippines.
Amazon’s smart doorbell company Ring is now working with the AI-powered surveillance camera company Flock. According to a letter sent to the company by Sen. Ron Wyden, Flock had allowed data access to the Secret Service and the Navy — as well as ICE, as previously reported by - 404 Media- .- The partnership is through Ring’s Community Request program. In April, Ring announced another partnership with Axon, the company behind Taser. Read Article >
Automated license plate recognition systems, also known as ALPR or simply LPR systems, have become increasingly popular — and controversial — tools for law enforcement in recent years. The systems can automatically photograph and record data on license plates in real time, drawing the ire of privacy advocates like those at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has just released information on security vulnerabilities in ALPR systems across the country. - “Earlier this year, EFF learned that more than a hundred ALPR cameras were exposed online, often with totally open Web pages accessible by anyone with a browser,” the organization says in the new report released today. Read Article >

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The fight over Flock and other ALPRs

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