Hundreds More Flock Cameras Removed in the US This Week. Flock Caught Repackaging Traffic Data
Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis said this week he's removing Flock cameras from state roadways. And according to a local news report, that led sheriff's departments in at least three other Florida counties to also "announce they're ending their own license plate reader programs." The same week in Texas, the Dallas Police Department announced it's also shutting down over 300 more Flock…
Governors in Florida and Texas, as well as law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin, have decided to remove Flock cameras from their roadways and systems. The reason behind these decisions is that Flock had been collecting and repackaging traffic data from city cameras and selling it back to the cities. Despite the data being stripped of identifying information, officials expressed concerns about the company's trustworthiness and the ethical implications of such data collection.
Racine County Sheriff Christopher Schmaling stated that the sheriff's office would not participate in a system that used public safety as an excuse for mass surveillance and the monetization of innocent people's information. The sheriff's office and other law enforcement agencies are now investigating the company's actions, as their contracts allegedly prohibited the distribution or sale of the collected data.
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