Safeguards Can’t Depend on Every User Being Ethical

Our Take

Buntai's video gets at something we harp on constantly: a surveillance system that depends on everyone using it ethically isn't a safeguard, it's a hope. Flock Safety and the police departments that deploy its cameras love to point to policy documents and training modules, but policy is not the same as a technical limit. A rule that says "don't misuse this" is worthless the moment someone decides to misuse it anyway, whether that's an officer stalking an ex, a department running plates for ICE, or a small-town cop selling lookups on the side. We've seen all three happen in the real world.

Real accountability looks different. It means hard caps on retention, audit logs that get reviewed by someone outside the department, public reporting on every search, and consequences that actually bite when the rules get broken. Most ALPR deployments across the country have none of that. They have a vendor dashboard, a terms-of-service agreement, and a promise that trust us, we're the good guys. That's not infrastructure, that's a liability waiting to surface in a news story.

Credit to Buntai for laying out why "just trust the operators" can't be the standard for a tool that logs where everyone drives, every day, forever. If you want to see how many of these cameras are already watching your own routes, check our map, and if you're ready to push back at a city council meeting or file records requests, our take-action guide has the templates to get started.