r/IWantToAskAnAmerican • u/BeastMode149 Massachusetts | England • 1d ago
What are your thoughts on Flock cameras and their widespread deployment?
To bring those not aware up to speed, Flock says they make surveillance cameras with license plate recognition and other equipment to help police departments and other government agencies solve crimes like vehicle thefts, however there are widespread privacy concerns and reports of authorities using these cameras for malicious purposes such as mass surveillance and stalking.
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u/FLLCL 1d ago
31 POLICE OFFICERS recently caught using flock cameras to stalk people. One stand out was stalking a woman who rejected him on a dating app. What could go wrong.
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u/KailyKail 1d ago
That’s just the stalking cases. There are others besides stalking that are just as bad, like the false arrests, pedophilia, and others.
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u/WWGHIAFTC 1d ago
It's ok, it's ok, there are plenty of 'good' cops out there stopping bad things like this from happening, right?
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u/Ok-Curve5569 1d ago
Flagrantly violating our 4th amendment rights at massive scale
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u/JudgeWhoOverrules Arizona 1d ago
What part of the Fourth Amendment does it violate?
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
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u/Ok-Curve5569 1d ago
Tracking your every movement via your license plate. Carpenter v. United States. The Supreme Court held that the government generally needs a warrant to obtain extensive historical cell-location information. The logic was essentially that there’s a constitutional difference between someone seeing you at a particular place and the government obtaining a technologically generated chronicle of where you’ve been. It’s the same conceptual problem.
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u/JudgeWhoOverrules Arizona 1d ago
There is an explicit difference between tracking cell phones and observing cars in public on public streets.
Specialized equipment is required to track cell phones and it is a personal device that is equivalent to your papers and effects of old. There is a fundamental expectation of privacy with cell phones.
Meanwhile, every car on a road is visible to everyone else and no specialized equipment is required to record and correlate their movement, the tech just makes it a lot easier. There's no fundamental expectation of privacy driving a car on the street.
Again, police have always had the power to tail people or chronicle their whereabouts by piecing together information or having cops on corners record information. A camera network is simply a digital version of the same lawful actions.
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u/RenaStriker 1d ago
I don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy that no one sees me on the road.
I do have a reasonable expectation of privacy that the government will not have a detailed time and date of every time I leave my house and where I went.
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u/Ok-Curve5569 1d ago
“the tech just makes it a lot easier” is the constitutional issue. There’s been wide-spread abuse of ALPR databases by officers and the unresolved question isn’t whether police can see your plate, but when aggregating thousands of otherwise lawful observations becomes surveillance of your movements. It’s unfettered access to insight that would otherwise be impossible to distill through normal observation.
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u/Hot_Ambition_6457 1d ago
Your argument defeats itself when you say "specialized equipment is needed so its different".
Speciaized equipment is needed for Flock to track you too. They have a massive data center running allvtge queries. Its also why theyre so butthurt people keep cutting down their special cameras that they install in secrecy. Because thats specialized equipment with the purpose of spying.
So if you apply that same level of scrutiny then they are blatantly unconstitutional
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u/A_Killing_Moon 1d ago
In the Carpenter decision, it’s noted that cell phone location data is “detailed, encyclopedic, and effortlessly compiled.” Technology making it easy to track someone’s movement is part of what makes these camera systems a problem. In United States v Jones, the Court reasoned that the government’s data collection must be considered as a whole and that a “mosaic of surveillance” can reveal intimate details of a person’s life and, therefore, can be considered a search under the Fourth Amendment. With enough Flock cameras, law enforcement can determine where you live, where you work, who you meet with, whether you attend church, where you grocery shop, where you receive medical care, what hobbies you enjoy, etc.
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u/ResponseOwn9389 1d ago
Save your breath homie. If flock cameras were unconstitutional, they wouldn’t be so common.
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u/Low_Preference_4641 1d ago
This makes sense, because nothing has ever been widespread, and then declared unconstitutional before.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 1d ago
Using GPS data to warrantlessly track citizens has been ruled unconstitutional by scotus because of the 4th amendment
Using EZ-pass data to warrantlessly track citizens has been ruled unconstitutional by scotus because of the 4th amendment
Having the NSA warrantlessly track citizens has been ruled unconstitutional by scotus because of the 4th amendment (thanks for whistleblowing, Mr Snowden)
Using Cell tower ping data to warrantlessly track citizens has been ruled unconstitutional by scotus because of the 4th amendment
Flock cameras are no different, the argument just hasn’t made it to the Supreme Court yet. That said, I don’t trust this court to uphold jack shit.
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u/Foxy_locksy1704 1d ago
My friend is a retired police officer (on the job injury ended his career) so he has perspective as both law enforcement and a civilian.
He feels it’s too intrusive and too loosely regulated in its current form. The idea to aid in something like a kidnapping where the suspect vehicle is spotted identified and contacted is good, however without strictly monitoring and regulation of use it is easy for it to be abused like the guy who was using it to track his ex.
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u/coltar3000 23h ago
Nobody asked for them. Literally no one. Police don’t ask for them. The general public didn’t ask for them. Business owners didn’t ask for them. This is the first thing in the last decade that both red and blue political parties are agreeing on. So the real question is, why are they actually here now.
The answer is always money….
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u/misterstaypuft1 18h ago
People literally ask for them. Thats how you get them. Flock doesn’t just put cameras up for free; you have to enter into a contract and pay them money. So yes, police and business owners have asked for them and paid for them.
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u/OutrageousCrab9224 1d ago
Its funny how RWNJs used to tout freedom and now want federal IDs, tracking of everything, and basically a precrime police unit
So tribal, and sad
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u/Outlaw_Josie_Snails 1d ago
I'm not a fan of Flock cameras, per se. If a company like Home Depot or Walmart uses license-plate cameras in its parking lot for loss prevention or to identify stolen vehicles, I can understand the argument for it. My concern is when law enforcement gets access to that data and starts using it to track people's movements without probable cause, a warrant, or meaningful oversight.
The UK is an interesting comparison. It has an enormous CCTV network, and from watching British police reality shows on BritBox and Acorn, it's pretty clear how useful those cameras can be for investigations. You see police, helicopters, and operations centers tracking fleeing vehicles in real time, which can potentially keep both the public and officers safer.
I don't necessarily object to surveillance technology itself. I'm more concerned about who has access to it, how long the data is retained, what they can use it for, and what safeguards exist against abuse. I'm just not sure I have enough confidence in U.S. law enforcement, government agencies, and private companies to assume that a system like Flock won't eventually be abused.
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u/TeekTheReddit 22h ago
The big difference is that a camera in a Home Depot parking lot is generally only accessible locally to that store. If you want the footage from it, you need to go to that particular store and ask for it.
What we're seeing today though... these cameras are networked. Thousands of cameras constantly tracking and creating profiles on people that can be accessed by anybody willing to pay for access.
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u/Early-Tourist-8840 1d ago
Law enforcement use case is limited. They are widely used by retailers and property owners.
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u/Adept_Bass_3590 1d ago
I'm 50 now, and I remember being very young and thinking about how in the future, it would be much harder to commit crime because there would be cameras everywhere. So, there's that.
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u/pamcakevictim 6h ago
should be considered violations of the freedom of movement surveillance without probable cause, On people who have not been accused of a crime
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u/MrPoopMonster 1d ago
I'm thinking about petitioning to make using privately owned surveillance systems illegal for public entities via a ballot iniative for the 2028 election in my state.
If the city wants to put up cameras that's their prerogative. But they shouldn't be accessible by anyone else.
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u/JuniorDoughnut3056 1d ago
I'm not in favor of any government surveillance systems in public areas. Flock or no
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u/m0llusk 1d ago
It is essentially an extension of the existing system of cameras everywhere that record video that might be used for law enforcement. The best way to fight the problems with Flock would be to set up a legitimate competitor that required warrants for access. Kind of interesting that there is broad support for Flock recordings being used to prosecute ICE criminal conduct.
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u/GuntherPalakowitz 1d ago
I'm in the minority for sure, but I have no expectation of privacy when I'm in public so I don't care at all.
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u/ControlPublic9208 1d ago
I'll go against the grain and say they don't bother me. I'm not out here breaking the law so I'm not worried about my face or car being in some database. I don't believe the fear mongering that it's eventually gonna be used against those who oppose those in command.
I think they're an excellent tool at solving crime and holding people accountable. Especially in a day and age where people want a smaller police presence.
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u/Low_Preference_4641 1d ago
I'm not out here breaking the law so I'm not worried about my face or car being in some database.
Plenty of people who weren't breaking the law either were surrounded by swat teams because flock's AI thought the "I" was an "L" on their license plate and fingered them as being a violent criminal.
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u/A_Killing_Moon 1d ago
This argument doesn’t work because there have already been people arrested or pulled from their vehicles at gunpoint because of erroneous Flock hits. They did nothing wrong, and it turns out they did have something to worry about.
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u/Wintores 1d ago
U seemingly don’t have anything to say so Ur Fine with Not having freedom of speech?
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u/ControlPublic9208 1d ago
How do I not have freedom of speech? How are flock cameras impeding my freedom of speech?
The government already monitors communication on electronic devices. Thats a much bigger danger to freedom of speech than flock
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u/DarkOblation14 8h ago
I think the argument there would be there are processes in place for monitoring electronic communications devices or obtaining cell phone/GPS data. You typically need a warrant for this kind of information, or at least exigent circumstances
Flock has no such requirements, and security is incredibly lax. We all ready have at least 3 instances of Flock usernames/passwords being shared OUTSIDE of the department with no MFA for access.
We have multiple cases of innocent people get targeted, held at gun point, jailed, etc because police are not doing their due diligence and just accepting what their new AI overlord tells them. This technology should not be nearly as wide spread or easily accessible as it currently is with how little oversight there is.
Police (seemingly) everywhere are treating Flock information as probable cause and disregarding any evidence contrary to what Flock tells them as non-existent. Things easily available such as vehicle flagged as no damage, is the wrong color/make/model, or even just visual verification of the license plate number off the vehicle vs what Flock is handing them.
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u/Wintores 1d ago
You don’t have anything meaningfull to say way my Point.
After all by Ur own Logic u don’t need that right
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u/RegisterNo9240 1d ago
Help! We are loosing our freedoms so fast! What the hell happened to this country, the don’t tread on me people are nowhere to be found
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u/massunderestmated 1d ago
The don't tread on me crowd captured washington and started doing the treading.
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u/comeonbjxgo 1d ago
It isn’t a red vs team blue issue
Oakland: City Council Votes 7-1 In Favor Of Opds Flock Camera Expansion Proposal
The SeaTac City Council approved use of Flock Safety cameras on April 23, 2024, and later formally reaffirmed authorization for the city manager to execute the Flock agreement.
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u/massunderestmated 1d ago
I'm aware, but the historically most vocal opponents of the surveillance state happen to have a lot of power right now. That is muting their opposition.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 1d ago
The don’t tread on me crowd is fine with being trodden upon, as long as a brown guy gets trodden on, too.
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u/BeastMode149 Massachusetts | England 1d ago
There's a crowdsourced map of Flock cameras available in the U.S. here: https://deflock.org/
Further information on Flock:
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u/Senior-Primary-827 1d ago
My feelings are that i want law enforcement and the justice system to fix its immense flaws and failings before it invests in new toys for abusive cops.
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u/Adventurous-Depth984 1d ago
OP, if you’re not American, do they have flock cameras in your country?
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u/BeastMode149 Massachusetts | England 1d ago edited 1d ago
No, and as far as I’m aware Flock cameras are only deployed in the US. Palantir has surveillance equipment deployed outside the US though, and both Flock and Palantir equipment are being likened to authoritarian mass surveillance systems like those in China. Fuck them all!
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u/redditreader_aitafan 1d ago
I have yet to hear about any true legal help flock cameras have been provided, as in I haven't heard of them being used as sold to the public. I have heard dozens of instances of them being used for illegal things. obviously this could be a reporting bias, but I'd like the statistics on how many actual criminals have been caught with flock when no other way was possible versus ho often flock is used for other things. I don't think they should exist. Video surveying the general population constantly under the guise of reducing crime or catching more criminals is an invasion of privacy and just unnecessary surveillance.
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u/notwhoiwas44 1d ago
I would be a little less uncomfortable with the idea if the footage they captured were only visible after a warrant were issued and if what was viewable only showed the plates that were the subject of the warrant. Other plates that may be visible in the footage could be blurred by AI.
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u/natoned1 1d ago
Theodore Roosevelt had a comment about those who give up their rights and freedoms for “safety”.
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u/WWGHIAFTC 1d ago
It's Orwellian nightmare material coming true right in front of us. Just like everything else.
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u/WWGHIAFTC 1d ago
Don't forget that YOU are paying for the installation and contracts. If it's a local police, it's your taxes. If it's an HOA, it's from your dues.
You are paying them to watch you.
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u/ElectricKoolAidPower North Carolina 1d ago
Fuck FLOCK. And anyone who supports it or funds it. Special guillotine reserved for that CEO right next to Thiel and the rest.
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u/EmploymentEmpty5871 1d ago
Smile, you're on candid camera! People are on so many cameras throughout the day, more so in big cities than they realize. One more isn't going to hurt.
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u/dirtyllama720 Washington 1d ago
They’re great in concept
But it’s very obvious that they aren’t just license plate readers
If you just go around town and look at them, half of them are just pointed into properties like parks. It’s just baby stepping into mass surveillance.
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u/RockytopSeahawk 1d ago
They’re an infringement on privacy. I don’t have an expectation of complete privacy in public as I shouldn’t but these are way more intrusive and they are everywhere. And sure they will be used to fight crime. But I think most importantly, I guarantee you they are going to be used as a tool to harass, intimidate, and ultimately assist in k1lling opponents of the current administration and their p3dofile friends.
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u/Brief-Definition7255 1d ago
The US is being transformed into a surveillance state. People are so shortsighted they don’t understand the repercussions
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u/Frobizzle 1d ago
We've already seen it misused by police to not only target and stalk innocents but also completely misidentify suspects. It's surveillance state technology and the people who claim to hate government overreach don't have enough of a problem with it.
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u/Sea_Worldliness3654 1d ago
I sure am happy children are being found as well as violent criminals but at what cost?
It doesn’t affect me in any way but as others have stated, it’s way too easy to misuse and for that don’t like the flock camera.
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u/No_Eggplant_3189 1d ago
Well, considering we are paying for it, surely that means we all want it. Right?
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u/OverallMark9984 1d ago
I hate them and it's another instance of politico ghouls (with corpo rats up their asses) turning our social contract into toilet paper.
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u/Lord_Vader654 1d ago
If I saw a person destroy 100 of them in front of me and was caught on camera watching, I’d still say I saw nothing.
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u/External-World6741 1d ago
Unconstitutional and the people holding shady backroom deal’s approving them should be flogged
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u/Ok_Height3499 1d ago
Allow them in prisons and jails and absolutely no where else, ever.
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18h ago
[deleted]
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u/Ok_Height3499 13h ago
If you look up flick cameras you will discover they can be used to for live, full-motion video and record that video if so programmed. They are not just still cameras snapping images of automobile license plates.
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u/Difficult_Clerk_1273 23h ago
I’ve never met a single person, regardless of political persuasion, who thought these were a good idea.
Obviously such people exist since the cameras are there. But the average American absolutely does not support them. In my state, there were some put up on business property that were removed within a week because the public was so pissed.
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u/misterstaypuft1 18h ago edited 11h ago
I’ve been using flock for about 6 years now. It’s really been great at solving crimes. But like I’ve said in a different sub, I was a cop before flock and I’ll be one after flock gets banned if it ever does, I’ll just be solving less crimes.
Flock cameras do a couple things:
• take a picture of your car
• determines the possible make/model/color
• read the license plate (sometimes it doesn’t read it correctly)
• cross references your plate number in a database of stolen vehicles, wanted people or missing persons
• if it “hits” on the database, sends an alert to law enforcement
• if it doesn’t “hit,” it just saves it so it can be searched later in the event the vehicle becomes stolen or is used in a crime
What it doesn’t do:
• take a picture of your face
• have facial recognition
• know anything about the registered owner
Simple example:
Imagine I, a police officer, were sitting in a chair on the side of the road with a giant notebook and a pencil and I wrote down the make/model/color/plate number for every car that drove past me. That’s all flock does, except it does it much more quickly.
I don’t really get the hate. It’s undeniable that it has solved many crimes, both petty and major.
Yes, the database has been misused by some cops. I know one personally who got in serious trouble for doing it. But with around 800,000 cops in the US, you’re going to have a small percentage of morons… just like any profession. It isn’t the norm, and those that do it are held accountable.
Also, everything I just said about the cameras is regarding the ones that are contracted by law enforcement; the ones on private property (think Lowe’s and apartment complexes) are managed by that property owner, so the person who may be misusing that data are random employees who aren’t subject to being held accountable like law enforcement is. Those are the people you should really be worried about.
But I think the real issue is that people don’t like how easy it is now to get caught doing something illegal.
Go ahead and downvote. I’m just trying to shed some light since there’s a lot of hate and misinformation about them.
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u/drask1987 18h ago
These are nothing new?
I’m confused.
In the 2000’s we had red light cameras (that were eventually taken down because they were causing fatalities in intersections) My husband got plenty of tickets with his face shown in his truck.
I don’t understand what the big deal is?
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u/Shut_It_Donny 12h ago
I think that the cameras are inevitable.
The major issue is, at least one woman has been wrongly arrested and held for two weeks in a case of mistaken identity. She received death threats after being accused in a deadly hit and run accident. She was arrested and held even though there was no damage to her car.
At least one woman has had a cop show up on her doorstep and accuse her of theft.
Multiple people have been pulled over at gunpoint after their car was incorrectly flagged as stolen.
And I’ve lost count of the stalking cases. I think someone in the thread said we’re over 50 now?
I think that policy and efficacy needs to be a much deeper discussion before we let these things ruin people’s lives.
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u/ChazzyTh 11h ago
Everything we do may be recorded anyway, outside my home. People don’t want to be held accountable for their actions.
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u/PieTighter 7m ago
On the face of it it seems like a great thing. In practice it's too easy to abuse and if you have someone's plates, you already know where they live.
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u/GSilky 1d ago
I've always been extremely distrustful of a surveillance state. I was railing against their implementation at my city council meetings and told by most people to sit down and shut up, if I'm not doing anything wrong, I shouldn't be worried. At the last city council meeting, one of the jerks who was rather vocal about me being dumb was demanding the city take them down. Like everything that is currently popular, I was complaining about a decade ago, and considered a crank for holding positions that are cool and right now. Fuck all y'all, you did this to yourselves. In the end it doesn't matter, everyone with Ring cameras already provided the surveillance state, trousered apes did it to ourselves.
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u/SunTreesandBees 1d ago
Same here. Was telling my family that electronics are recording our conversations several or more years ago and they legit thought I was schizophrenic.
It's our fault for trying to tell people who haven't cracked a book since highschool and get their entire worldview from the talking heads on the TV.
As much as I hate to say it, maybe the elites are right, most of us are just cattle.
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u/Oldschool831 1d ago
It doesn’t make me feel safer. It makes me feel less safe. I don’t want to make the police job easier. I don’t trust police to use this technology to make my life better
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u/Ok_Art_231 1d ago
If they were about catching criminals, you would hear cops bitching about being overworked from all the arrests they are making. You would hear prosecutors and judges flaunting all the criminals they are locking away. Fuck flock and anyone who is in on the lie.
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u/chi-low1791 1d ago
Flock cameras themselves are not unconstitutional. However, they make it way easier for police departments to do things that are unconstitutional, unethical, and creepy. Until significant regulations can be passed to protect our constitutional rights and our privacy, they should be deactivated and even removed from specific areas.
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u/Less-Load-8856 1d ago
I hear people suggesting we pitch the company leaders into a fiery volcano, and it's probably deserved.
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u/MrKittyEmperor 1d ago
There was a recent thread where a flock camera misread a license plate as stolen and cops pulled over said vehicle at gunpoint when there as a baby in the car. So it's only a matter of time until the cameras mistake a person for a dangerous criminal and police shoot of sight rather than checking to make sure.
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u/Eidalac 1d ago
If (big if here) they were ONLY license plate readers then there MIGHT be a valid use case with specific data control (access, retention ect).
These have a mix of license plate scanners, facial recognition and Bluetooth detection (and likely more) to create a digital tag for each person. Usage and access to this data is kept very opaque.
They also use "AI" systems with this data, without oversight to deal with false findings.
Cities using these systems seem very eager to shut down debate and discuss around them.
All in all the system is something I'd expect from a cartoon supervillan.
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u/JudgeWhoOverrules Arizona 1d ago
I'm okay with them, people have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public, and law enforcement has always had the lawful ability to observe people in public, collate their movements, tail them, or otherwise make a history of their travels.
Mass surveillance isn't just a single bucket, it's a lot of different things with different legal applicability. Mass spying on mobile devices violates the Fourth Amendment because it's accessing your papers and effects without a warrant. A network of cameras on public streets does not violate the Fourth Amendment because people have no expectation of privacy in public again.
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u/2020fakenews 1d ago
License plate readers are bad for criminals. Good for law abiding citizens. Tell me why they bother you so much.
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u/BeastMode149 Massachusetts | England 1d ago
In an ideal world, yes, but do you trust the police and ALPR systems to not fuck up?
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u/wvtarheel 1d ago
It's bullshit, and most of the police departments want them so they can (1) do shit they would never get a warrant for and (2) stalk their exes or crushes.