\n
<\/p>\n
For members of the public increasingly scrutinizing Flock cameras over unconstitutional searches and other privacy concerns, it\u2019s hard to know basic things, like where the cameras are posted, who\u2019s looking at the footage, how often the data is accessed, and how long the data is stored.<\/p>\n
Public records requests can help answer these questions, and sometimes police choose to voluntarily share it, using optional \u201ctransparency portals\u201d that Flock builds. Those portals log statistics like total number of cameras, vehicles scanned, or police searches in a given area.<\/p>\n
Flock spokesperson Andrew Smith told the Texas Tribune that the portals \u201cgive agencies a public-facing way to publish information about their [ALPR] programs, including policies, usage, and access rules to help communities better understand how the technology is being used.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, very few agencies seem to be opting in to the sharing. In Texas, there are hundreds of agencies using Flock cameras, and only 59 agencies use transparency portals, the Tribune reported. Of those, just 16 share data with the public.<\/p>\n
Without courts requiring warrants or state and local officials requiring more transparency, Flock cameras will continue tracking movements in ways that the public doesn\u2019t fully understand, advocates warn. And new privacy risks may emerge as AI makes it easier to process data across the ever-broadening network.<\/p>\n
Michael Soyfer is a lawyer at the Institute for Justice who \u201chas studied Flock camera abuse and is litigating several cases on Fourth Amendment grounds,\u201d 404 Media noted. He suggested that without more transparency on how police are using the cameras, Flock may end up building tools to support some of these police misuses the public dislikes, such as automating the type of alerts used when tracking vehicle movements that have raised false suspicions or caused wrongful arrests.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re seeing that repeatedly with police flagging whatever they\u2019ll call suspicious patterns of movement. Federal agents were using ALPRs to monitor cars making day trips across the border and back to manufacture a basis to stop them, interrogate the drivers, and search them,\u201d Soyfer told 404 Media. \u201cI think Flock is going to automate that, using AI where cops can set alerts for those kinds of travel patterns.\u201d<\/p>\n