Federal judge Sara E. Hill ruled Oct. 1 that a Tulsa County deputy's warrantless search of Flock's cross-state camera network was unconstitutional. The search she faulted was a plate lookup run without probable cause, the query a plate-reader network is built around, so agencies now have to decide how they control it.
Perspective Coverage
5 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 19%
- Operator
- Operator 58%
- Investor
- Investor 23%
Reality
- Evidence74
- Adoption60
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives55
- Confidence70
Bernie Sanders' Ban Flock Act would strip local governments of grants from five federal departments unless they ban license plate readers. For the city officials who sign camera renewals, that turns a police tool into a grant-budget question while Congress waits out the midterms.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 22%
- Operator
- Operator 55%
- Investor
- Investor 23%
Reality
- Evidence66
- Adoption70
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives55
- Confidence64
VIDIZMO pitched Johnson City, Tennessee police in May on facial recognition across Flock and Axon footage in one platform. Flock's pledge against face recognition covers its own devices; VIDIZMO's route starts with clips an agency exports itself.
Reality
- Evidence72
- Adoption5
- Hype gap+45
- Incentives70
- Confidence62
Hackers pulled a camera off a roadway, recovered the encryption key stored inside it, and handed the files to 404 Media and WIRED. The joint analysis found a person detector inside an automatic license plate reader.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 40%
- Operator
- Operator 45%
- Investor
- Investor 15%
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption55
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives60
- Confidence64
DDoSecrets published filesystem images taken from a working Flock ALPR camera. The Android build inside them carries a hard-coded API key and a security patch level seven years older than the build itself.
Publishers:404media.co · micahflee.com Reality
- Evidence72
- Adoption70
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives65
- Confidence70
Republicans and Democrats on the Senate crime subcommittee both objected that plate reader vendors leave abuse detection to the police departments buying the cameras, and the four invited chief executives did not appear.
Reality
- Evidence52
- Adoption61
- Hype gap+28
- Incentives74
- Confidence56
Cities are swapping Flock license plate cameras for Axon's after reporting on searches run for ICE and a nationwide abortion-related lookup. Axon keeps the same search-by-search record under four report names. Six agencies have handed theirs over.
Reality
- Evidence52
- Adoption30
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives65
- Confidence55
Hackers pulled a Flock camera off a roadway and copied its storage. The key to the encrypted media sat on an unencrypted partition, and the recovered logs show the device detects people and bicycles as well as plates.
Reality
- Evidence64
- Adoption76
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives72
- Confidence60
Rangers are objecting to plate readers at Yosemite and elsewhere, and an internal Park Service letter describes Verkada cameras filling the license plate gap where Flock is absent.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption45
- Hype gap−10
- Incentives66
- Confidence55
Flock now asks officers to type a criminal case number before searching its plate-reader network. It told MIT Technology Review it does not verify the numbers.
Reality
- Evidence76
- Adoption64
- Hype gap+42
- Incentives78
- Confidence74