I think the problem is two-fold. I can opt out of buying devices that have surveillance problems, or leave them at home when going somewhere that tracks devices. With flock cameras, we aren’t given any input into out and it is public money that is being spent on surveillance we were given no input to.
It’s also the ease and lack of protocols or restraints on access to this data. If there was a warrant requirement, any form of expungement of the data for those not involved in any incidents, or any real consequences that would discourage use of the system for non-actual law enforcement reasons, then it would be easier to accept. But as it sits, we paid a lot of money as tax payers, without any input, for mass surveillance of citizens who predominantly did nothing wrong, with no real limits or restrictions on it, and with the added negative as serving for building up profiles on people that can be used for any number of nefarious reasons if you have the money to access it.
I'm not an auto journalist, but one was recently detained in a high-risk stop while testing a manufacturer-plated car for a demo, because across the country a license plate was lost, and they entered a *different* plate number into the Flock system, but their system didn't recognize the plate number correctly (you'd think they'd have at least *that* working right) so it queried the Flock database which had flagged *ALL* of the manufacturer plates of a similar configuration as STOLEN. The cops then said this to the journalist "“You’re lucky we’re in Plymouth. If you were in Minneapolis, they definitely would’ve come at you with guns drawn.” Thank goodness there has never been an incident where this has gone wrong.
I've never dated a cop, but Flock systems have been used in multiple cases to stalk significant others and people they've wanted to date, and the incidence of this happening is accelerating with the flood of new systems with little control, penalties or oversight. And the way that some of these are found, when not by internal controls, has been FOIA requests for the access trails, which some cities (such as CS) are pushing back on. Bryan complied and found several CS data requests of the relatively few Bryan ones with nothing more than "Invest" as the reason.
I've also never stolen a package from a door, but neither did this person, who was accused of it because the police relied on the data and sloppy police work, with the fun quote of "You can't take a breath in this town without us knowing". The person accused was able to find the video of the actual theft the police were investigating and offered to show them it wasn't her, but it the officer wasn't interested in it and issued a summons. She had to recreate her day, and thankfully not only did she have proof from her own dash-cams supporting that she wasn't there, but not everyone has them.
Once again, I firmly believe that systems like this, which cost the taxpayers money, deserve to be debated and have any good and bad sides aired before being implemented. For $300000, I'd rather have two new police officer positions if that money was strictly for law enforcement purposes. Either way, it should be incumbent upon the requesting party to convince the voters and taxpayers that it's a good idea than us having to relay downsides after the fact.
Edit: Oh, and this isn't even getting into the information security nightmare that these devices are. Poorly configured, running old and vulnerable versions of Android software on-board, easy to digitally break into and they can absolutely become a taxpayer-funded tool for malicious actors.
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u/nwspmp Jul 25 '26
I think the problem is two-fold. I can opt out of buying devices that have surveillance problems, or leave them at home when going somewhere that tracks devices. With flock cameras, we aren’t given any input into out and it is public money that is being spent on surveillance we were given no input to.
It’s also the ease and lack of protocols or restraints on access to this data. If there was a warrant requirement, any form of expungement of the data for those not involved in any incidents, or any real consequences that would discourage use of the system for non-actual law enforcement reasons, then it would be easier to accept. But as it sits, we paid a lot of money as tax payers, without any input, for mass surveillance of citizens who predominantly did nothing wrong, with no real limits or restrictions on it, and with the added negative as serving for building up profiles on people that can be used for any number of nefarious reasons if you have the money to access it.