Surveillance cameras tracking every vehicle on the road now being questioned | News @ Nine
The short version: NBC4 Columbus reports that city officials are finally asking who gets access to Flock's vehicle-tracking data and why, a question long overdue.
Our Take
Credit to NBC4 Columbus for digging into something most local newsrooms gloss over: once a Flock camera captures your plate, who actually gets to look at it? It's a simple question that city councils rarely ask before signing the contract, and it's refreshing to see Columbus officials start asking it after the fact instead of never at all.
This is the pattern we track constantly — a police department adopts a 'public safety tool' with little public debate, and only later does anyone ask about data sharing agreements, retention windows, or whether neighboring agencies and even federal immigration enforcement can tap into the network. By the time those questions surface, the cameras are already bolted to poles on every major corridor, quietly building a record of everywhere you drive.
Columbus residents curious whether Flock has already rolled into their neighborhood can check our camera map, and anyone who wants their city council to answer these access questions before expanding the system further should look at our take action page for ways to push back.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of NBC4 Columbus, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.