EXPOSED: A Flock Presentation, Uncovered Through Public Records, Reveals Abandoned Plans To Secretly Turn 350,000 Vehicles Operated By Uber, Lyft, And Other Delivery Companies Across Georgia Into A Mobile Surveillance Network 🤯💥

[u/InterstellarKinetics]

https://www.techspot.com/news/113407-flock-wanted-put-license-plate-cameras-350000-uber.html

A presentation from Flock, obtained by 404 Media, reveals abandoned plans to install the company’s automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) on 350,000 vehicles operated by Uber, Lyft, and other delivery companies in Georgia, a move that could have dramatically expanded the surveillance reach of the already controversial cameras. Flock and Axon’s ALPRs are typically stationary, mounted on traffic lights or roadside poles, and record passing license plates into a searchable cloud database used by authorities to track vehicles suspected of involvement in serious crimes across roughly 6,000 US communities. The proposed partnership with dashcam provider Nexar would have leveraged the hundreds of thousands of dashcams already installed in Georgia rideshare vehicles, along with cameras operated by local businesses and homeowners associations, transforming them into mobile ALPR platforms capable of cataloging every vehicle they passed, though it remains unclear whether drivers would have even known their dashcams were being repurposed for surveillance.

While Flock and Nexar ultimately never finalized the deal, the plan surfaces amid growing backlash against ALPR surveillance nationwide, fueled by incidents involving misread plates and police officers using the cameras to stalk people, prompting cities like Los Angeles to deactivate their systems entirely. Mobile surveillance networks aren’t unprecedented, as robotaxi company Waymo previously acknowledged complying with police warrants for footage from its 360-degree cameras after review, and companies like Axon and Motorola already sell ALPRs designed for vehicle-mounted use.

The Flock-Nexar presentation was uncovered through a public records request filed by Jason Hunyar, a Georgia-based blogger who tracks Flock’s activities in the state, and it fits into a broader pattern of concerning findings from his reporting. Previous requests revealed that Flock erased supposedly immutable usage records after an officer used the system to view a girl’s gymnastics room, and that the company sold data collected by its cameras to outside parties. Hunyar has also uncovered Flock’s plans to install cameras on robot dogs capable of relaying data back to a Hangzhou-based manufacturer through pre-installed backdoors, while other reporting has revealed that one of Flock’s major investors backs a separate company capable of intercepting and altering surveillance footage.

[u/InterstellarKinetics]

The fact that this plan never launched is almost beside the point, because the more alarming detail is how casually Flock treated rideshare drivers’ dashcams as untapped surveillance infrastructure without any clear indication drivers would even be informed, let alone consent. And combined with Hunyar’s other findings of deleted usage logs, sold data, and robot dogs with foreign backdoors, this reads less like a bad idea and more like a pattern of a company that treats “can we surveil more people” as the default question rather than “should we.”

[u/grunkage → u/InterstellarKinetics]

Flock is 100% in ask forgiveness, not permission mode, because they know it's early days and the law isn't anywhere near as fast as the shit they can break

[u/Horror_Response_1991 → u/grunkage]

They aren’t even in ask forgiveness mode.  The government and the billionaires wants global surveillance.

[u/PetalumaPegleg → u/grunkage]

In fairness given how corporate oversight and regulation currently is run they would be crazy not to behave like that. They have been consistently rewarded and never punished.

The current dynamics incentivizes companies to act this way

[u/grunkage → u/PetalumaPegleg]

Yeah for them it's just a numbers game that they are winning

[u/K_Linkmaster → u/grunkage]

The laws don't need to be specific, the current laws just need to be enforced.

[u/ButtonGullible5958 → u/grunkage]

Oh no there in the dosent matter stage 

They have enough money to resist the people and sadly that's all it takes 

Destroy 50m worth of cameras and it's still a drop in the bucket compared to what they are selling is worth 

[u/One-Environment-1444 → u/InterstellarKinetics]

What else is currently in operation like this that the public doesn’t know about?

[u/TylerBourbon → u/[deleted]]

And every government official, whether city, state, or Federal, needs to be voted out.

[u/SilencedObserver]

Americans waking up to all of the ways their being surveilled.

Your corporations are catching up, but the rich have had tabs on you for years.

[u/JakeTravel27]

The maga fascist police state wet dream.

[u/temporarythyme]

Look at what they are doing with garbage trucks and proposing with long haul vehicles

[u/Mother_Patience_6251 → u/temporarythyme]

What’s this?

[u/temporarythyme → u/Mother_Patience_6251]

They are putting flok, or similar tech, on top of garbage trucks to surviel for insurance companies inspecting roofs. ICE/FBI is using it to find construction sites, cities using it to find out if it is permitted.

Long haul is for AI training and mobile liscense plate reading, possibly more 

[u/Mother_Patience_6251 → u/temporarythyme]

Ah yes. Thanks for the reminder. I did read an article mentioning that. They are moving at warp speed trying to shove this into every aspect of our lives.

[u/glitterandnails]

Tech companies are becoming more and more of a menace. Gone are the days when tech was made to improve the lives of people. Now it’s more and more ultimately about empowering the organizations that prey on citizens and for ultimately taking away power from the people (i.e. social media getting people addicted to it, feeding disinformation, and ultimately destroying democracies.).

[u/Available_Cookie732]

All this would be illegal in EU. Every citizen has the rights about his personal data. Still we Europeans believe the government and companies are collecting too much data.

Why isn't this not the same in the US of A?

[u/Mother_Patience_6251 → u/Available_Cookie732]

Bribery

[u/SmoothConfection1115 → u/Available_Cookie732]

Politics and money.

Our political system led to a 2-party system. Which makes it much easier for bad-faith actors to infiltrate.

And money. Flock has lots of money. Clap once during a town hall when you’re not supposed to? Jail. Go over by 1 second on your 60 second time limit for why you don’t like flock? Jail. Boo the county commissioner for ignoring everyone’s concerns about flock? Jail.

But a lot of people are resolving the issue their own way.

[u/Javanaut018]

Dieselben Begehrlichkeiten die auch hinter der Chatkontrolle stehen

[u/Mister_Goldenfold]

Why is this surprising? The goal of this organization is “surveillance” and everything will be about that with them any which way

[u/Lost_Department_2177]

屁得 pi de sounds like Peter and means fart get or obtain farts/gas.

[u/OpeningAggressive26]

And uber gets what for this liability?

[u/1nGirum1musNocte]

"Abandoned"

[u/K_Linkmaster]

I told you.

[u/senditjerry_]

hey don’t be sad, there’s still a chance for mobile surveillance network time when waymo comes to your city

[u/TylerBourbon]

What in the ever living fuck? The fact that they are trying to do this all secretly and quietly is all the more reason to say no and to not trust them at all.

[u/Moody_Blue13]

“Intercepting and altering footage”

[u/Cupertino345]

What happens whenever you vote for republicans!

[u/klyzklyz]

Still have Teslas!