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justaprogressive

(7,395 posts) Thu Jul 2, 2026, 01:57 PM Thursday

License plate cameras are scanning 20 billion vehicles a month, cities are starting to push back By Skye Jacobs

https://www.techspot.com/images2/news/bigimage/2026/06/2026-06-30-image-3-j_1100.webp

In a nutshell: Cities are collecting vast amounts of vehicle data through AI-powered camera networks, giving police the ability to track a car's movements across jurisdictions in seconds. The same systems are also fueling a growing debate over how much surveillance is too much.

Flock Safety is squarely at the center of that debate. The Atlanta-based company has rapidly expanded by selling automated license plate readers to police departments, neighborhood groups, and private organizations. Its cameras, often mounted inconspicuously on poles, capture images of passing vehicles and convert them into searchable data points. The company says its system logs about 20 billion license plate scans each month.

The technology goes well beyond simply logging plate numbers. Each scan can include details such as a vehicle's color, make, model, and distinguishing features, including bumper stickers or gun racks. That information is stored in a cloud-based system, where law enforcement agencies can run searches using full or partial license plate numbers or even descriptive terms.

In practice, the system functions as a pattern-matching tool. Officers can reconstruct a vehicle's recent movements, set alerts for cars tied to investigations, and, where policies allow, search data collected by agencies in other jurisdictions. Flock says its cameras do not use facial recognition and that images are deleted after about 30 days by default unless a different retention policy is in place.

https://www.techspot.com/news/112940-ai-camera-networks-tracking-billions-vehicles-residents-pushing.html]

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License plate cameras are scanning 20 billion vehicles a month, cities are starting to push back By Skye Jacobs (Original Post) justaprogressive Thursday OP

The issue is not just what the cameras, company, and cops do as stated on the face of it. RockRaven Thursday #1

A Flock camera just appeared in my quiet, rural California town vanamonde Thursday #2

20 billion vehicles? Stacey Grove Thursday #3

If your car is stolen in the City of Atlanta delisen Thursday #4

RockRaven

(20,163 posts)

1. The issue is not just what the cameras, company, and cops do as stated on the face of it.

Reply to justaprogressive (Original post)

Thu Jul 2, 2026, 02:20 PM

Thursday

The issue is also that these companies and cops have consistently been found to be using the data in ways which violate their own stated policies. So if you already don't like what's written on the box, go ahead and open it up and look inside and see how much worse it is in reality.

If you have these cameras in your community, it is highly likely that a) your politicians are lying to the public about how they are used, b) your cops are lying to your politicians and the public about how they are being used, and c) the company is lying to your cops, your politicians, and the public about how they are being used.

Edited to add:
Here is an ACLU article, just published today, illustrating the point.
https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-cameras/flock-safety-credibility-lost-as-it-repeatedly-lies-to-city-councils-police-departments-and-public-across-the-country

During a city council meeting in a suburb of Wisconsin in April, the city of Oshkosh considered whether it should approve a contract to use automatic license plate readers (ALPR) from Flock Safety, a prominent company that provides ALPRs to law enforcement agencies across the country. During the meeting, one city council member asked Flock if the company’s ALPR system created heat maps that could reveal where a particular vehicle had driven over a period of time. Flock’s chief information security officer, who was in attendance, told the council that Flock’s system did not “create a pattern or heat map of an individual’s movement” through the tracking of their vehicles. At the end of that meeting, the Oshkosh City Council approved a contract with Flock. The very next morning, the city learned that Flock had lied.
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Ultimately, the Oshkosh City Council voted to immediately revoke its approval, thereby setting a record for the shortest time between a city approving and cancelling a Flock contract: one day.

Flock later admitted that its ALPR system does indeed produce a “heat map” that shows where “point-in-time images have been captured of a vehicle” for up to an entire month. However, the company chose to respond to the revocation of its contract by attacking the City of Oshkosh and its city council, complaining that Flock had “not [been] afforded the opportunity” to explain its lie after being caught. Flock also sought to trivialize its factually inaccurate statement by categorizing it as “one small misconception” and referring to the dispute over the system’s heat map tracking feature as “a minor nuance.”

What happened in Oshkosh was not an isolated incident. Rather, it reflects a pattern of Flock regularly misleading or even lying about its business practices, safety record, commitment to privacy, and efforts to protect vulnerable populations. And as was the case in Oshkosh, Flock’s lies are not just directed at the general public; they often specifically target Flock’s potential government customers. The urgent takeaway for government officials and police departments is that they should be extremely hesitant to believe anything Flock’s tells them about its company, its products, or its commitment to safety and privacy.

vanamonde

(249 posts)

2. A Flock camera just appeared in my quiet, rural California town

Reply to justaprogressive (Original post)

Thu Jul 2, 2026, 02:27 PM

Thursday

Every time I pass it on my bicycle I flip it the bird. Doesn't help, but it feels good.

Stacey Grove

(231 posts)

3. 20 billion vehicles?

Reply to justaprogressive (Original post)

Thu Jul 2, 2026, 02:41 PM

Thursday

There aren't that many people on this planet.

delisen

(7,522 posts)

4. If your car is stolen in the City of Atlanta

Reply to justaprogressive (Original post)

Thu Jul 2, 2026, 02:56 PM

Thursday

The Police Department will call you every 24 hour period in which your license plate has been read.

After the fifth day my friend began to wonder whether there was any active attempt on the part of police to actually apprehend the car thief. Her car was never more than 10 miles from the location where it was stolen and the plate was read many times day after day.

Finally, only after it was abandoned was it recovered, probably because a citizen reported an abandoned vehicle. It was recovered in very messy condition, filled with drug paraphernalia.

Cars are stolen by professionals or joyriders. The recovery rates are low. Modern policing seems very different from years ago.

I think the Flock cameras are about control of us, not so much about solving crimes.

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