Hundreds More Flock Cameras Removed in the US This Week. Flock Caught Repackaging Traffic Data (msn.com)
- Reference: 0185438424
- News link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/09/05/0637208/hundreds-more-flock-cameras-removed-in-the-us-this-week-flock-caught-repackaging-traffic-data
- Source link: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/a-dozen-wisconsin-police-agencies-announce-flock-suspensions/ar-AA2bBe2Y
And in Wisconsin "at least a dozen" law enforcement agencies announced they'd suspend use of Flock's cameras, [3]reports the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel , joining Wisconsin cities like Appleton, Oshkosh and Kenosha that also cancelled their Flock contracts. But this week's cancellations had a new reason:
> Officials said it was revealed [Flock] had been collecting five years of traffic data, which had been stripped of identifying information, from cities' Flock cameras, and repackaging that as a traffic analytics product to sell to cities.
>
> All said they supported the effectiveness of the technology in investigations, but cited losing faith in the company's trustworthiness. "This is not what we agreed to, and it is not what the public was led to believe," said Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling in a news release announcing the removal of Flock cameras operated by the agency. "The Sheriff's Office will not participate in a system that appears to use public safety as a justification for mass surveillance and the collection and monetization of information about innocent people...."
>
> [Racine County] officials were told the company believed if it stripped the data of any identifiable nature, it was then considered to be the company's property and no longer the city's. [Lt. Michael Luell, the sheriff's public information officer] said the sheriff's office has outside attorneys, along with the county's attorneys, investigating the company's move. "Our contract, from my reading of it is, it stated they agreed not to distribute or sell our data," Luell told the Journal Sentinel. "But they had this legal theory."
Thanks to long-time Slashdot readers [4]MAurelius and [5]schwit1 for sharing the news.
[1] https://www.wctv.tv/2026/08/31/gov-desantis-set-remove-flock-cameras-state-roadways/
[2] https://thehill.com/policy/technology/6065838-dallas-police-flock-camera-funding-freeze/
[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/other/a-dozen-wisconsin-police-agencies-announce-flock-suspensions/ar-AA2bBe2Y
[4] https://www.slashdot.org/~MAurelius
[5] https://www.slashdot.org/~schwit1
Mind boggling... (Score:4, Insightful)
that anyone thought for an instant this data wouldn't be misused. Follow the money.
Re: (Score:1)
Not sure if this is low-quality astroturf, bad trolling or a failed attempt at sarcasm but that statement is objectively [1]false [slashdot.org].
[1] https://slashdot.org/index2.pl?fhfilter=flock
Re: Mind boggling... (Score:3)
If you're not a douche bag you wouldn't have had to post as AC
and repackaging that as a traffic analytics produc (Score:2)
Fine to repackage their offer as traffic analytics as long as it is actually just that, meaning entirely giving up on licence plate OCR (the enabler of surveillance and law enforcement side of their product package).
Re: (Score:2)
> Fine to repackage their offer as traffic analytics as long as it is actually just that, meaning entirely giving up on licence plate OCR (the enabler of surveillance and law enforcement side of their product package).
Depends on the terms of their contract. If you believe the summary, then doing anything with the county's data other than serve it to them for the intended purpose is against the terms of their contract, which would make it actionable.
Complain to the investors (Score:4, Interesting)
[1]https://www.flocksafety.com/bl... [flocksafety.com]
From a recent investment round announcement:
Flock is thrilled to announce our fundraise of $275 million, bringing our valuation to $7.5 billion. This investment will allow our team to continue to drive innovation in safety technology, expand research and development, and support U.S.-based manufacturing.
The financing was led by Andreessen Horowitz, with backing from Greenoaks Capital, Bedrock Capital. Meritech Capital, Matrix Partners, Sands Capital, Founders Fund, Kleiner Perkins, Tiger Global, and Y Combinator also participated. This builds on a year of rapid expansion where Flock surpassed $300 million in annual recurring revenue — reflecting a 70% year-over-year increase.
[1] https://www.flocksafety.com/blog/flock-safety-secures-major-funding
The Important Facts (Score:3)
The reports continue to come in and they continue to be over reported. Granted, we've grown from a handful of cameras removed or destroyed each week, to now hundreds of cameras per week and a state level ban. But, Flock continues to install thousands of these things every week. Flock's coverage continues to grow!
But, if the anti-Flock movement is successful in driving them all out, the higher probability is that Flock will be replaced by another system. Law enforcement has no issue with a surveillance state "for your safety". It is a near certainty that Flock will simply be supplanted by some other License Pate Reader(LPR) system from a major national vendor like Axion or Motorola. Both of whom have long standing and close relationships with law enforcement agencies nationwide. And both of whom are entering the market with products to compete with Flock and try to take a share of their pie of success.
A federal level ban is the only chance of stopping this LPR surveillance state and a federal level ban will never happen. The feds want it just as much as local law enforcement. We are cooked. And the saddest part of the whole thing is that we are funding our own trap.
Re:The Important Facts (Score:4, Interesting)
> Flock's coverage continues to grow!
What is happening is Flock's coverage density in existing areas is increasing, while other areas are losing coverage entirely. So instead of actually growing the network geographically it is now shrinking.
In my county and town there were 11. The county Sheriff had 4, the town Police had 4, and Lowe's Home Improvement has 3 on their private property. In the last week the Sheriff and Police both decided to remove their Flock cameras.So have most neighboring counties. This has caused a massive gap in the Flock geographic coverage in this entire region. 8 cameras doesn't sound like a lot, but when they are positioned on the major arteries coming in and out of the town at the access points to the interstates, the amount of coverage and vehicles being scanned is impacted tremendously.
Increasing their coverage density in existing areas just shows more details of the same vehicles. So instead of a vehicle being scanned three times while driving from point A to point B, it might be scanned four or five times while it moves around a city.
It's a vastly different thing completely losing the ability to scan vehicles at all in entire areas, and I argue that even though the raw number is increasing (if what you say is true), their overall capability is drastically decreasing.
Re: Crime in the US is out-of-control (Score:2)
License plate cameras continuously collect "evidence" without any crime having been committed.
Re: (Score:1)
You know a crime has been committed ( attempted robbery/kidnapping) when the perp lies bleeding in the street just paces from your hand holding the smoking 357-cal Dan Wesson.
Re: (Score:1)
Why don’t you move to a country with less crime. You know like Malaysia or Saudi Arabia?
Re: (Score:2)
+1. I'm sick of going to CVS and having to beg to get a tube of toothpaste out from behind bulletproof glass.
They will be back and in greater numbers (Score:1)
after the election is over. This is a soothing ploy by the red states.
The problem is that there is only a tiny window where the voters have all the power, and that is at an election. The rest of the time, they have to put up with who they elected. Short of recall (And in some states recall can't be done) there is not much the voters can do about a "loose cannon" they elected. The have to suck it up. Politicians know this and some of them take advantage of it. The flock camera issue is just one of a myriad o
Re: (Score:2)
I'm not so sure that Flock will be roaring back. People are pretty upset about being tracked everywhere. It doesn't take too many mistaken felony stops to get people angry.
The tech isn't that great and makes a lot of errors. Cops obviously trust the system and do what it says. We have the prison experiment run by AI and administered by humans, no one wants to live under that.
Flock OWNS your data! (Score:1)
Flock now claims a perpetual right to use the data those cameras collect. Not for the length of the contract. Indefinitely. A town can cancel Flock next week, lose access to its own footage, and Flock keeps the right to use that data anyway.
Set aside how you feel about the cameras, that argument is already happening everywhere else, and it's not the part that should interest anyone who signs vendor contracts for a living. The lesson here is simpler: a customer's own data-retention policy is worth little i
I guess we'll see about that (Score:2)
Wisconsin is claiming Flock does not own the data. Per TFS:
> [Racine County] officials were told the company believed if it stripped the data of any identifiable nature, it was then considered to be the company's property and no longer the city's. [Lt. Michael Luell, the sheriff's public information officer] said the sheriff's office has outside attorneys, along with the county's attorneys, investigating the company's move. "Our contract, from my reading of it is, it stated they agreed not to distribute or sell our data," Luell told the Journal Sentinel. "But they had this legal theory."
I can imagine Wisconsin reading the Flock ToS as saying Flock can improve its products and services with the data, but that doesn't mean the data itself is a product they can re-sell. And that sounds tenable.
Re: (Score:2)
The products and services is in the and part. The important part is the first part Customer hereby grants to Flock a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free, irrevocable, perpetual, worldwide license to (a) use and disclose Customer Data to provide the Flock Services; .
Re: (Score:2)
If you're going to play a game with parts of speech, then I'll point this out:
> use and disclose Customer Data to provide the Flock Services;
I can see Wisconsin as reading "the" as meaning only the services that Flock provides to Wisconsin, not to the rest of the world.
citizens (Score:1)
Given the FLOCK details exposed, it seems a patriotic duty to "disable" Flock outdoor cameras ... nominally in the most legal way possible ... given the need for immediate disablement.
Except you did just that... (Score:3)
> The Sheriff's Office will not participate in a system that appears to use public safety as a justification for mass surveillance and the collection and monetization of information about innocent people.
ANYBODY who says they didn't know how the information collected would be used - and abused - is either lying or too stupid to hold any responsible position in any organization.
Either way, their "We didn't know!" prompts me to respond with "Gimme a break!" Fucktards.
The rest of the headline (Score:5, Funny)
The rest of the headline should read “Flock cameras replaced with Axion cameras.”
Just changing horses, not actually learning why mass surveillance is a *problem*.
Re: (Score:1)
> If you aren't being a cunt causing problems - then its a non issue....
Spoken like a typical coward.
Re: The rest of the headline (Score:2)
If that person meant what they wrote, then maybe they're just ignorant. I can say from experience that one may not understand the need for privacy until one has a need for privacy. It happened to me through no fault of my own. After significant efforts, I came to the conclusion that there is basically no possibility of true privacy for anyone anywhere in the modern world. With significant caution, there are some potential protections for data, but even those are not completely reliable. Still, the fewer sig
Re: (Score:1)
Uh, that's not how Americans use the C bomb at all, i.e. as an extremely derogatory term for women. Much more like a British or Australian usage.
Re: The rest of the headline (Score:1)
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" /s
Said every authoritarian regime leader everywhere (Score:3)
> If you aren't being a cunt causing problems - then its a non issue....
Said every authoritarian regime leader everywhere (usher in the Nazis)
Re: The rest of the headline (Score:2)
No, but there appears to be a quota of falsely identifying and arresting innocent people, often with brutal force.
Re: (Score:2)
Exactly. Don't forget it's election season and politicians are pretending to care. Watch how after the election some other cameras quietly appear but much less conspicuous this time.