Frog March Them Out of Their Offices in Handcuffs

Once again, Flock Safety has continued to operate a camera system after their contract was canceled.

If this ain't illegal, it should be. 

The easiest way to tell that Flock Safety doesn’t really care that its massive network of ALPR (automatic license plate reader) cameras is being abused by cops to stalk their exes and harass residents is to judge it by its actions. When confronted with court case after court case detailing these allegations (and those are just the cops who actually got caught!), the company says two things: first, we’re not personally responsible for the actions of “bad apples” and second, some vague “fixes” are on the way at some indeterminate point in the future.

The other way you can tell Flock doesn’t care about anything but future profitability is this: when cities pull the plug on Flock systems due to local backlash, Flock has — one more than one occasion! — decided to to simply turn the cameras back on.

Dayton, Ohio ended its contract with Flock following public complaints and some apparently forbidden sharing of data with federal immigration officers. But the city had to resort to covering Flock cameras with garbage bags to prevent further recordings since even the PD seemed unsure of whether or not it could actually control this function and Flock itself remained deliberately vague about when (or if!) it would be showing up to remove the recording equipment that contractually still belonged to it.

This has also happened in Menominee, Wisconsin, Evanston, Illinois, Littleton, Massachusetts, and the South Carolina Secretary of Transportation has documented hundreds of unpermitted cameras.

………

Do what now? Flock was told to remove the cameras. Instead, Flock decided this meant it could flip the on/off switch as often as it wanted to until it actually got around to removing the cameras, due to vague concerns about backlash Flock has absolutely earned.

And I can guarantee you whatever things Flock is saying at this point, it’s only saying because it got caught. I have yet to see an incident where Flock has informed cities or PDs of inadvertent activation or illegal access. In every case, it’s always Flock making excuses after the fact for things it could have done more of to prevent (illegal access) or abusive things it did itself (re-activating/re-installing cameras) that contradicted the intent of city residents and their governments. These are not the actions of a trustworthy tech provider. These are the actions of a company that clearly believes it cannot be fucked with because it has managed to corner this market.

Shut it down.