Imagine driving a manufacturer-provided press vehicle for a road test and suddenly finding yourself surrounded by police because a license-plate reader misidentified your temporary tag.
That’s exactly what happened recently to an automotive journalist Joel Feder, who says officers tracked the vehicle for days before stopping him in a parking lot over a plate-reading error.
Some license-plate readers have also been installed near businesses that sell firearms, creating records of vehicles visiting those locations.
It isn’t an isolated case.
Armed and dangerous
We’ve covered Flock cameras before. They were sold as precision crime-fighting tools that could quickly locate stolen vehicles and help police solve serious crimes. But mistakes continue to happen. Similar errors have led to innocent families, used-car buyers, and other drivers being subjected to high-risk traffic stops. In some cases, officers have even drawn their weapons.
At the same time, residents are pushing back.
Dozens of cities and towns have allowed Flock contracts to expire or removed cameras altogether after residents questioned the systems’ accuracy, privacy implications, and data-retention policies. Public pressure is making a difference.
Before anyone declares victory, however, there’s another side to the story.
The surveillance network itself isn’t disappearing. In many communities, Flock is simply being replaced by another vendor.
Different vendor, same spying
Companies such as Axon, Motorola Solutions through Vigilant Solutions, Rekor Systems, Genetec AutoVu, and ELSAG — now part of Leonardo — are stepping in to compete for the same contracts. They may promise stronger privacy controls or improved technology, but the basic model remains the same: photograph passing vehicles, record where they were seen, and store that information in searchable databases.
The debate is no longer whether these systems should exist. It’s who gets to operate them.
Privacy advocates argue that building long-term databases showing where people travel raises serious Fourth Amendment questions, particularly as courts have become increasingly skeptical of warrantless collection of detailed location information.
The concerns extend beyond highways and intersections. Some license-plate readers have also been installed near businesses that sell firearms, creating records of vehicles visiting those locations. Critics argue that this raises additional questions about lawful activities protected by the Second Amendment.
RELATED: Flock Safety CEO: It’s ‘terroristic’ to want to know where we put our spy cameras
Timothy Fadek/Boston Globe/Getty Images
DeFlock delivers
One of the most effective responses has come from ordinary citizens.
An independent project called DeFlock.org maps known automated license-plate reader locations across the country, allowing residents to see where cameras have been installed. Armed with that information, people have attended city council meetings, questioned local officials, and in some cases convinced communities to remove cameras or reject new contracts.
Technology companies will continue improving these systems because there’s money to be made, and police departments will continue looking for tools they believe help fight crime.
The real question is where communities decide to draw the line.
Every time you leave your driveway, these systems collect another data point about your movements. If everything works perfectly, most drivers never notice. When something goes wrong, however, innocent people can find themselves explaining a database error to police officers on the side of the road.
Changing vendors doesn’t necessarily change that reality. It simply changes whose logo is on the camera.
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