buildConfirmed3 publishers Two Peel Regional Police officers visited Anthony Sistilli on September 20 over a plate-recognition camera he built to log only police vehicles. Their fear of being tracked matches drivers' fear of Flock, though his build, as reported, is one camera without Flock's shared search.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 30%
- Operator
- Operator 58%
- Investor
- Investor 12%
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Not scored
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives40
- Confidence65
North Richland Hills, a Fort Worth suburb, quoted a privacy group $2.3 million for records on how its police use Flock plate cameras. Because each Texas city prices these requests itself, whether the public can check police searches comes down to a local estimate of staff time.
Reality
- Evidence68
- Adoption20
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives
- Not scored
- Confidence64
buildOne report1 publisher WIRED traces rising Thai camera shipments into Flock Safety's supply chain
Flock Safety told buyers in 2019 that its license plate cameras were manufactured in the United States. Import records now show growing camera and radar shipments from a Thai supplier. WIRED could not establish where the cameras are assembled today.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption62
- Hype gap+25
- Incentives66
- Confidence55
buildConfirmed2 publishers A hacking group took a camera down from above a roadway and found the key to its media store sitting in plaintext on the same flash, in hardware whose business case is being cheap enough to leave unattended.
Reality
- Evidence66
- Adoption45
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives62
- Confidence60
buildOne report1 publisher Flock Safety's fake police account searched live cameras in Dunwoody and Bryan
Audit logs obtained by a Dunwoody resident show Flock Safety staff running FreeForm queries for masks, signs and religious symbols against production camera networks, with explicit permission on record for one of the jurisdictions involved.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption40
- Hype gap+28
- Incentives70
- Confidence55
MPD's Internal Affairs tracked its own sworn officers with Flock plate readers
The DC police union learned in July that Internal Affairs had been querying Flock cameras for officers under investigation. Its grievance was denied the same day the department restricted access force-wide.
Reality
- Evidence64
- Adoption58
- Hype gap+8
- Incentives72
- Confidence57
buildOne report1 publisher Flock's nationwide lookup returned Boston plate reads for three days after the city confirmed sharing was off
Boston ran about 45 Flock cameras for 156 days under a no-cost pilot. The city's surveillance report blames a Flock vendor error for three days of out-of-network access to plate data it had contracted to keep local.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption66
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives58
- Confidence55
Trump backs the 120,000-camera network Hawley's subcommittee is investigating
The president told reporters he likes Flock's license plate readers, a month after Josh Hawley opened a formal investigation into the company's data practices and Greg Abbott halted Texas state funding for the cameras.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption72
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives70
- Confidence58
Bridgewater bagged its Flock cameras after 7 million searches in a town of 7,000
Local governments from Florida to Washington state are ending their contracts with Flock. The Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney who has read dozens of those municipal agreements says what happens to already-collected data is unresolved.
Reality
- Evidence64
- Adoption58
- Hype gap+14
- Incentives62
- Confidence61
Flock's $8.3B asset is a searchable national archive. Its liability is the same archive
One officer logged more than 700 unauthorized searches on his estranged wife's car. The feature that made that possible is the one a16z and Tiger paid about 16 times revenue for.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption86
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives68
- Confidence60
Longmont dropped Flock and kept the cameras: vendor churn is not surveillance policy
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
- Evidence56
- Adoption72
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives74
- Confidence54
Flock signed up 40% of American policing. The bill is arriving at city hall.
The camera company has 120,000 license plate readers in 49 states and 7,000 agencies under contract. Dozens of cities and counties have now cut ties, and the hardware is being vandalised.
Reality
- Evidence54
- Adoption87
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives66
- Confidence55