Flock says its cameras don't track people
The short version: InvestigateTV exposes the gap between Flock's "we don't track people" messaging and its own training materials showing exactly that.
Our Take
Flock Safety has built its public relations strategy on a simple denial: these cameras don't track people, they just read plates. InvestigateTV's reporting blows a hole in that line by pointing to the company's own training videos, which coach police on following a suspect "from location to location to location" — which is, by any honest definition, tracking a person.
The findings from security researcher Benn Jordan make it worse. He found dozens of Flock cameras streaming in the open, some of them capable of zooming in and visually following pedestrians regardless of whether they're suspected of anything. That's not plate-reading, that's a surveillance camera keeping tabs on whoever walks by. The company can call it what it wants in press statements; the training material and the hardware's actual behavior say otherwise.
This is exactly the kind of gap between corporate messaging and operational reality that communities need to understand before they let these networks blanket their streets. Credit to InvestigateTV for digging up the receipts. Check our camera map to see what's already watching your neighborhood, and visit take action for ways to push back.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of InvestigateTV, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.