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.
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