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Hundreds More Flock Cameras Removed in the US This Week. Flock Caught Repackaging Traffic Data (msn.com) 84

Posted by EditorDavid from the get-the-Flock-out dept.
Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said this week he's removing Flock cameras from state roadways. And according to a local news report, that led sheriff's departments in at least three other Florida counties to also "announce they're ending their own license plate reader programs." The same week in Texas, the Dallas Police Department announced it's also shutting down over 300 more Flock cameras, acccording to The Hill, after Republican Governor Greg Abbott ordered state agencies to halt funding.

And in Wisconsin "at least a dozen" law enforcement agencies announced they'd suspend use of Flock's cameras, 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 MAurelius and schwit1 for sharing the news.
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Hundreds More Flock Cameras Removed in the US This Week. Flock Caught Repackaging Traffic Data More

Hundreds More Flock Cameras Removed in the US This Week. Flock Caught Repackaging Traffic Data

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  • The rest of the headline (Score:5, Funny)

    by Jarik C-Bol ( 894741 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @08:25AM (#66324464)
    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:The rest of the headline (Score:4, Interesting)

      by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @10:40AM (#66324594)

      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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      The rest of the headline should read âoeFlock cameras replaced with Axion cameras.â
      Just changing horses, not actually learning why mass surveillance is a *problem*.

      Well, the big question are the Axon (taser) cameras networked and linked.

      Part of the problem for Flock is that access to their network is basically unlimited - your county or whatever subscribes and now you have access to all cameras in the network. If your ex moves across the country, you can still track them through Flock as you alway

  • Mind boggling... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @09:11AM (#66324490)

    that anyone thought for an instant this data wouldn't be misused. Follow the money.

    • Everybody knows (Score:3, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      When you make people aware of the cameras they are extremely unpopular but they're busy worrying about other things. The economy for one thing because they keep putting idiots and psychopaths in charge. They also get distracted by bullshit moral panics.

      Drag queens and trans girls and violent video games and DEI etc etc. My favorite right now must be the retail theft moral panic. Like why the hell should I care if Walmart has a few billion dollars a year of merchandise stolen? They're not going to lower

      • Re:Everybody knows (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Powercntrl ( 458442 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @03:05PM (#66324943) Homepage

        Like why the hell should I care if Walmart has a few billion dollars a year of merchandise stolen?

        Because thieves don't just steal from Walmart. Your other local stores that can't absorb the losses will go out of business. Now you're forced to shop at Walmart whether you wanted to or not.

        Also, thieves don't just target retail stores. Maybe you're thinking about getting a nice shiny new e-bike to avoid paying those awful gas prices we've been having lately. You park it outside of the store (secured with a modestly priced lock), do your shopping, and when you come back you're doing your own rendition of "dude, where's my bike?" You're now out the money you spent on the bike, and back to buying expensive gas for your car, because criminals won't let you have nice things.

        Don't get me wrong, we don't need a Flock camera up everyone's ass to catch the crooks. Good old fashioned loss prevention work inside the store, with the cops actually arresting the shoplifters, seems like a time-tested approach.

      • When you make people aware of the cameras they are extremely unpopular but they're busy worrying about other things.

        Yeah that's actually true of me. I don't like the cameras but there are so many other things I care about more.

  • 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:3)

      by pz ( 113803 )

      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.

    • Re:and repackaging that as a traffic analytics pro (Score:5, Interesting)

      by AleRunner ( 4556245 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @01:05PM (#66324839)

      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).

      No it isn't. "Anonymized" data actually isn't. Let's say that I'm a gang member and I'm trying to track a DA. I know that he's got a special custom SUV that's pretty rare. I also know where his home is and where the court is so I know his leaving and arrival time for each journey. All I need is "anonymized" data with the model names included. Now I follow that for a week or two. Each time I compare the traffic data with the trip time and I build route data. Initially I will find multiple possible roads used for each journey segment, but after a few trips each will be ruled out and I'll be able to know exactly where the DA journeys. Now I can pick the best locations for assassination without risking having to do physical scouting or monitoring that could be detected.

  • Complain to the investors (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ritz_Just_Ritz ( 883997 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @09:19AM (#66324500)

    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.

    • They could not possibly care less about your complaints. If you did something politically at the polls or you organized large-scale political action that threatened their money and power yeah they would care and they would respond accordingly. Not by addressing any of your concerns but by spending more on propaganda to confuse your neighbors and frighten them with booga booga trans girls or something so they would vote to slip their own throats and yours.

      You might be smart enough to avoid that. Hell you

  • The Important Facts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SlashbotAgent ( 6477336 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @09:31AM (#66324520)

    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:5, Interesting)

      by Dan East ( 318230 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @10:30AM (#66324584) Journal

      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.

  • 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

    • 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:4, Insightful)

    by gabrieltss ( 64078 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @11:14AM (#66324678)
    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 if the vendor's terms say otherwise. The retention policy is real right up until it meets the terms of service â" and then the terms win.

    The lesson here is simpler: a customer's own data-retention policy is worth little if the vendor's terms say otherwise. The retention policy is real right up until it meets the terms of service â" and then the terms win.

    And the terms aren't the only thing that moves. This is the same Flock that, Wired reported this week, has been building tools to identify and track people by their movements â" the exact capability it spent years telling city councils it didn't do. So the promise drifts and the contract drifts, both in the vendor's direction, and the customer learns about it after the fact, if at all.

    References the perpetual, worldwide license.

    See: 4.1. Customer Data.
    "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; and (b) use Customer Data to support and improve Flockâ(TM)s products and services."

    Last Updated: August 21, 2026
    https://www.flocksafety.com/le... [flocksafety.com]

    • 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.

      • 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;.

        • 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.

          • There is a catch. the Flock Services; doesn't specify to whom. They made it generic on purpose I think. This way in court Flock can argue "it doesn't specify 'provide the Flock Services to the customer". So it could mean to anyone.
            It will be interesting how this plays out in court. But I think Flock put in a legal loophole in the TOS.
  • 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:5, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Saturday September 05, 2026 @11:29AM (#66324702)

    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.

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