Cities contracting with Flock Safety to run networks of license plate reader cameras are growing increasingly alarmed about the company’s involvement with the Trump administration’s mass deportation schemes, to the point that some are now covering their own cameras in trash bags, a new report revealed.
According to 404 Media, one city bagging up its cameras is Dayton, Ohio, which followed “months of resident outrage, a scandal in which the city was sharing Flock camera data for immigration enforcement, apparently by accident, and a $30,000 audit into how the cameras are being used.” They had to bag the cameras rather than take them down outright because “police there are unsure whether the cameras are still active, and the city also doesn’t seem to know whether it is allowed to take the cameras down.”
This follows a similar move by the city of Evanston, Illinois, which, following media reports that “data from the cameras was making its way to Immigration and Customs Enforcement through Flock’s national camera network,” bagged up its cameras until Flock could uninstall them, said the report.
These moves, 404 Media continued, show cities “feel that they do not have the ability to unilaterally decide when to stop using Flock surveillance cameras” under the terms of the contracts they signed.
The American Civil Liberties Union has sounded the alarm on Flock, which they claim is building up the infrastructure for a “mass surveillance state” with its network of license plate readers that were sold to cities as a tool for public safety.
Meanwhile, immigration enforcement is not the only politicized use of the Flock camera network. Last year, it was reported that a police officer in Johnson County, Texas, used a national Flock plate database to search for a woman who had an abortion.
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