Flock cameras are creepy. They might still be worth it.
To no small extent, Americans have grown accustomed to being watched. For more than a decade, CCTV cameras have recorded a hefty portion of many people’s public movements, while ubiquitous smartphones have made us all perpetually vulnerable to unsolicited documentation (if not, social media notoriety). Until recently, however, technical limitations constrained the reach of government […]
Flock companies offer police departments networks of surveillance cameras, primarily automatic license plate readers (ALPRs). These cameras photograph each vehicle that passes them, generating textual descriptions of the vehicles and storing the data in a searchable database. This capability allows police to potentially monitor the travels of most any driver with a few keystrokes.
However, the use of ALPRs has raised concerns due to instances of abuse, such as police officers using the technology to track their exes or romantic interests, and some departments using ALPR data to surveil their own critics or protesters. Despite these concerns, Flock and many police departments claim that ALPRs can help catch car thieves and locate missing persons, leading to a debate over the public safety benefits of the technology and the potential risks to civil liberties.
Written by urgent.news from Vox's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
