Police cameras track billions of license plates per month. Communities are pushing back.Sandy Boyce, a 72-year-old retiree in Sedona, Arizona, first saw the cameras around town this summer. They were black and sleek, mounted on tall poles under large solar panels and positioned at intersections to snap images of cars as they drove by. Boyce had read that Sedona had quietly signed a new contract with Flock Safety, the country’s largest provider of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), which had installed 4 cameras to build a database of every car that drove by. 8 more were planned for later in the year.
She was furious to learn that she was being tracked by a system paid for with her tax dollars and without her consent. So Boyce took action, rallying her community to push for change.
She is one of a growing number of Americans who have gotten involved in local politics to dispute the use of Flock equipment in their towns. NBC News spoke to activists and local politicians pushing back in seven states — Arizona, Colorado, New York, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia — who have worked to end their cities’ and towns’ contracts with Flock and get the cameras removed.
Their politics fall across the spectrum, from conservative constitutionalists to progressives aghast at the idea of their communities’ potentially sharing location data with the Trump administration as Flock did this year, united by growing worries about their privacy.
The scale of Flock’s network and the amount of data its users have access to are unique.
Flock contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies across the United States, its CEO has said, and scans over 20 billion license plates per month, according to Flock's website. More than 75% of those offices opt in to provide information to Flock’s live national database, which allows law enforcement agencies from across the country to view drivers’ license plate numbers, locations and directions and the times of recording without warrants, Flock told the office of Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.
Flock’s databases are augmented by information provided by nongovernment businesses and people who use certain products.
Flock contracts with more than 500 businesses and brands and more than 3,000 private organizations, like homeowners’ associations, which have the option to automatically share the data they collect with their local police, a spokesperson said. In October, Amazon’s Ring signed a contract with Flock that will allow police to request Ring doorbell camera video from people’s doorsteps, the company said. Previously, Ring allowed police to request video from Ring customers through its Neighbors app, but that feature was discontinued last year outside of emergencies.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/flock-police-cameras-scan-billions-month-sparking-protests-rcna230037
