by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
When I began hearing the term "Flock cameras" a few weeks ago, I thought it might have something to do with tracking the migrations of wild geese - or monarch butterflies - but just a bit of quick research revealed that it was a technology focused on the tracking of humans - and specifically humans in their ubiquitous cars.
It seems like in this most recent "ICE Age," our government is insanely focused on tracking human beings, the same government taht likes to bloviate about "personal freedom."
As I sought to acquaint myself with this technology that was suddenly stirring so much controversy, I came across one story that made reference to "F.L.O.C.K." cameras as though the collective noun was actually an acronym, something which seemed readily plausible, but further reading revealed that was not the case. The cameras are called "Flock" because that is the name of their parent company "Flock Safety." The company name, however, does not reflect some family named "Flock," but rather it is a reference to the safety that comes from animals being in large groups - or flocks - the safety of herds. (Tell that to the buffalo!)
Flock cameras are devices whose function is automatic license plate recognition (ALPR). They collect information as cars pass by including license plate numbers, make, model and unique features of cars (like bumper stickers, roof racks, and even dents).
That, friends, is a whole lot of personal data in the hands of a wide variety of agencies and individuals (even damned HOAs), all of which can be readily accessed for legitimate or nefarious purpose, depending on the scruples of people with access to the material.
Information collected by Flock cameras is stored in Clouds, and the company has an automatic default data retention period of seven days - BUT, individual law enforcement agencies, or private community customers (like HOAs) can configure their retention periods to match local laws, state statutes, or internal agency policies.
There was recently a case out of Texas which made national news. A woman took her small child and fled the home she shared with her boyfriend because, according to her, he threatened to kill her. The boyfriend reported the matter to the police and made the claim that his girlfriend had used medication to give herself an abortion. The resulting investigation was characterized by police as "a death investigation of a non-viable fetus." Law enforcement began a search with the listed reason as "had an abortion. Search for female." Later, after the woman turned herself in and told her side of the story, law enforcement changed its story to one claiming they had conducted a safety search for the woman and her child believing they could have been hurt by her partner, the person who made the original report.
One of the reasons that heinous tale of law enforcement misbehaving made national news was the way that Texas law enforcement went about looking for the woman. They connected into a license plate recognition system utilizing the combined efforts of 83,000 Flock systems nationwide - all of which could have helped an abuser to re-ensnare his victim.
There are also real concerns that Flock camera systems could be used for stalking and to gather information and lists of people who attend certain political events. In fact the ways in which is could be misused are almost endless - and we all are dependent on travel by cars.
Protests over Flock cameras are growing and have even reached into America's heartland. The small town of Bolivar, Missouri, has been in the news recently over civic protests regarding Flock cameras, with some cameras in the community actually being vandalized. The city's board of aldermen voted last week to take down their Flock camera system.
It's an emerging privacy issue in a time when artificial intelligence seems to be sucking up and storing ever sordid detail of our lives.
Flock cameras: one more tool in Big Brother's toolbox.
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