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Vandalizing Flock cameras isn’t a lasting strategy

If you haven’t already, I encourage you to look up a map of Flock cameras and see where they are in your area. These ubiquitous devices, known as automatic license plate readers, do a lot more than scan license plates. They surveil everything from the bumper stickers on your car to your face, using AI to crunch this info and track nearly every move you make. Some cameras are pointed at neighborhoods, parks or nature trails, and they’ve been used to spy on protestors, stalk women and feed data to ICE. The whole system is riddled with security flaws and false positives, all of which is ripe for misuse by cops and anyone else with access. 

Even though I’ve previously heard of crowdsource projects like DeFlock.org that track where these cameras are popping up, I didn’t input my own ZIP code until recently. Even though I wasn’t surprised to see so many blue dots representing cameras in my area, it still made me feel a little nauseous and a lot anxious. Perhaps that’s why I waited so long to look into it — I didn’t want to know, especially considering how many times I’ve driven past one and never even noticed it.

I’m not going to entertain the argument “just don’t commit crimes and you’ll be fine.” Tell that to the people of Roseville, California, where Flock’s cameras read the wrong license plate 71% of the time. (And that’s just one city!) Nor will I be reassured by Flock’s insistence that they’ll do better about privacy abuses, the sort of empty mea culpa that befits Silicon Valley. 

The public isn’t convinced either. There are more than 130,000 license plate readers across the country, according to DeFlock, but people everywhere have taken to vandalizing the things, sometimes by cutting them down or spraying expanding foam on them. While the number of arrests for this is unknown, the accused are given folk hero status by many online. At least 100 cities have rejected or cancelled contracts with Flock, reflecting a growing movement with bipartisan support.

It makes sense why almost everyone hates Flock Safety. Their business model is inherently anti-democratic, in the sense that citizens don’t really vote for these things to be installed everywhere, and they clearly violate an individual’s Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights. 

But the pushback isn’t all good news. In many cases where Flock is kicked out, another company steps in to fill the void, such as Axon, the maker of Tasers and body-cams for police. There are key differences in how Axon operates compared to Flock, but the end result is pretty much the same: mass surveillance infrastructure is put in the hands of tech companies exposing the public to all kinds of abuses. Privacy concerns don’t go away just because the local police choose a different service.

Flock isn’t done yet either. The company’s fastest-growing segment is 60 mph drones that can read license plates from the air. The vandalism of Flock cameras may be cathartic, but they just get replaced, and often hidden even better. The solution isn’t to clandestinely tear these things down or swap one tech company with another. We need to demand laws that protect every byte of data people generate — or at the very least, enforcement of the existing privacy rights in the Constitution — and carry steep consequences for companies that violate them. 

It’s encouraging that the public is waking up to these privacy invasions, but to win the war, we need better ammunition than cans of foam spray and online maps. The fist of Big Brother is tightening and better strategies are needed before it’s too late.—Troy Farah

Send me a note about what you want to see here: [email protected] or say hello on Blue Sky.

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