Facial recognition isn't ready. They're testing it on us anyway
The short version: A Verified Privacy VPN clip nails the core problem: facial recognition and ALPRs are still failing in the real world, and we're the unpaid, non-consenting test subjects.
Our Take
Credit to Verified Privacy VPN's Hide & Speak series for saying out loud what most agencies would rather you not think about: these systems aren't finished products, they're live experiments running on the general public. Facial recognition misfires have already led to wrongful stops and arrests. License plate readers have the same failure modes — misreads, stale hotlists, context-free alerts — but because they run quietly in the background on every driver, the mistakes get far less scrutiny than a face-match arrest does.
The line about paying to be spied on with our own tax dollars is the part that should stick. Flock Safety and similar ALPR networks are largely funded through municipal and county budgets — public money buying private infrastructure that logs where residents drive, park, and go, with no meaningful opt-out and often no public vote. "Real-world testing" is a polite way of saying the debugging happens on your daily commute, and the errors land on real people, not on a lab notebook.
If you want to see how far this has already spread near you, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back locally, our take-action page has the tools to start.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Verified Privacy VPN (vp.net), published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.