How Safe is Flock Safety?
Opinion
The idea of a camera that could identify criminals seemed useful and possibly fun in films and movies (à la Paul Greengrass’s Bourne franchise), but what is the impact on people in our community? With a vote regarding the continuation to employ Flock’s AI-powered automatic license plate readers on the horizon, it’s hard not to think about what the real-life implications are of using this technology.
Even with Sergeant Connolly’s assurance that federal sharing and immigration-related queries have been disabled, there are still concerns, and rightfully so. Connolly and others speaking out in support of Flock’s use in Barnstable may have the best intentions, but does Flock? Flock has a history of backtracking on statements and misleading officials to get access to their cities and then share data with outside agencies, which should raise questions beyond the debate of whether or not AI-powered surveillance cameras are ethical and into whether or not Flock itself is an ethical company to work with.
The company, tactfully named Flock Safety, has worked hard to distance itself from its ties to federal agencies, with little success. It is hard to ignore that a company that claims to not be focused on targeting immigrants has previously had a pilot program with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The company has given vague statements about these ties, first denying them, and then admitting to “poor” communication. This is not a small startup run by some early-twenty-somethings in their mom’s basement, floundering for what to say without access to marketing teams. This is a multibillion dollar company run by a CEO who likes to pin his company’s critics against law enforcement agencies. This is not the only instance of deception, either.
Numerous cities in California had their data shared with Flock’s national network without the consent or knowledge of city officials. This is especially concerning considering it is illegal in California (under Senate Bill 34) to share license plate numbers with out-of-state agencies, making Flock’s use of data a clear infringement upon the rights of California residents. With clear evidence of the Georgia-based company operating in violation of state laws one time, what’s to stop them from doing it again? Once the data is shared, the impact has been made. There is no undo button on privacy.
Flock claims to want to help communities, to create safer spaces for the public, and maybe they have done that in some capacity. A community in Fort Worth, Texas, does claim to have seen a 22% decrease in crime where Flock Safety cameras were employed. But what time frame are we looking at? What are the baseline rates of crime in the area? The effectiveness of Flock’s cameras cannot be evaluated in any meaningful way without transparency behind these claims, primarily in regards to the context for its so-called successes. It is hard to even be confident the data showing success in a community in Texas can even be used as evidence to show that it would be beneficial on Cape Cod. Without clear methodology and baseline comparisons, a claim like this should hold no real weight when it comes to guiding local policy.
Moreover, 2.2 million license plate numbers were read by Flock cameras in Barnstable during the month of March. 111 investigations were initiated based on these scans, so what about the data of the over 2.1 million other people whose plates were read? Why risk the privacy of community members when the vast majority of people whose plates were scanned weren’t connected to an investigation?
This is not a film in which the movie ends, the cameras are cut, and there is no fallout from the infringement upon people’s rights to privacy. This is a real company preying upon our fears (and calling themselves “Flock Safety,” really?) by gambling with our privacy and data rights. And, if Flock Safety is better at choosing their company name than giving clear answers on their ties to government agencies and respecting state laws, then what are we risking and for what gain?