Flock Pitched a Plan To Turn Uber and Lyft Drivers Into Roaming Surveillance Vehicles
A Flock presentation shows the company planned to use around 350,000 Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers to collect license plate data for its surveillance system.
Flock, a tech company, once proposed a plan to transform Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers into mobile surveillance vehicles by equipping their cars with dashcams. This partnership, aimed at collecting license plate data, was detailed in a presentation that Flock shared with the Georgia Office of the Attorney General last August.
The company aimed to enlist hundreds of thousands of vehicles from these ride-sharing and delivery services, potentially turning them into roaming surveillance devices. However, Flock later denied executing this partnership. Despite this, the proposal reveals Flock's ambition to harness a vast network of drivers for data collection.
The presentation indicated that hundreds of commercial businesses and HOAs were part of the network, along with the Nexar partnership, which reportedly included 350,000 Uber/Lyft and other delivery service devices. The Nexar dashcams, designed for rideshare drivers and other types of drivers, are capable of capturing clear license plate data along with full HD video.
However, the feasibility and awareness of drivers about such data collection remain uncertain. The presentation was obtained by Jason Hunyar through a public records request. If you work for Flock, Axon, or a similar company, you can reach out to the author securely via Signal at joseph.404 or by email at joseph@404media.co.
Written by urgent.news from 404 Media's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — it may contain errors, so check the original before relying on it.
