Person
Senior policy counsel at the ACLU who argues surveillance limits should come from new laws rather than vendor guidelines.
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
Flock's chief executive sent a Senate subcommittee a letter instead of testifying. It says customer agencies own and control the search records and set retention, and that Flock does very little oversight of how clients search its network.
Reality
At least 56 municipalities cut Flock Safety contracts this year. Axon has already replaced it in at least seven, which tells you where the real control point sits.
Reality
WIRED says it pulled 69 prewritten police prompts and 45 tool definitions off Flock's own website. The procurement lesson: a vendor's "cannot" describes this build, not the next one.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishersReality
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