Flock Taught Cops How to Surveil No Kings Protesters

In a webinar last year, Flock demonstrated how law enforcement could use its technology to surveil various events, including protests and parades. The company's director of market management, Caity Peak, explained that real-time crime centers, which incorporate Flock cameras and other surveillance cameras, can be utilized for emergency response and monitoring of established events like parades, bike races, Mardi Gras, and protests.

Peak demonstrated a dashboard that combines Flock's automatic license plate readers (ALPRs), drones, gunshot detectors, 911 data, and other surveillance cameras into a single software platform. This allows officers to view all relevant data in one place during emergencies and seemingly mundane events. Flock's software can show ALPR data, body camera footage, traffic information, and video feeds from both outdoor-mounted cameras and cameras inside businesses and government buildings.

This type of surveillance is not unusual and is explicitly taught by Flock, contradicting the company's public stance that its ALPR cameras are noninvasive and primarily used for solving violent crimes. The webinar revealed that police have been using Flock cameras to monitor protests and other First Amendment-protected activities, such as an immigration protest in California.