At least 10 local governments and police agencies in the United States have moved to end, restrict or reconsider their use of Flock Safety’s surveillance cameras since the summer, according to a TechCrunch report published on 5 November.
TechCrunch names Monroe in Ohio; Newburgh and Ithaca in New York; Richmond in Virginia; Lansing in Michigan; South Windsor in Connecticut; Asheville in North Carolina; League City in Texas; El Paso County Sheriff’s Office in Colorado; and several Massachusetts towns including Hopkinton, New Bedford, East Bridgewater and Grafton. It says more than 100,000 Flock cameras are in use nationwide.
The reasons given include privacy and mass-surveillance concerns, questions over who can see the data, including immigration officials, and police adopting the cameras without council oversight. The report also cites cases of officers accused or convicted of misusing the system to stalk former partners. Flock says it does not sell data, has no contract with ICE and that customers control their own data; in August it cut the default retention period for new customers from 30 days to seven and required a case code for searches.
At state and federal level, TechCrunch reports that Florida has barred licence-plate readers from state highways, Texas has paused state funding, and bills to restrict or ban Flock have been introduced in Congress.
Reporting note: This summary relies on a single outlet’s count and on company statements that were not independently verified here. The photograph shows Flock-branded cameras in Maryland and is for illustration only; it is not connected to any town named above.
Photo: Epicdeflocker64 / CC0 / Wikimedia Commons
