Are these AI police cameras actually lying to the public?

Our Take

Credit to Winnebago Watch for digging into what should be a bigger story than a local council clip: the gap between what Flock reps tell city officials and what the hardware can actually do. If this account holds up, the pattern is familiar — a feature gets described as "disabled by default" or "not something we do," and then it turns up live, working, in front of witnesses. That's not a technical footnote, that's the whole ballgame when it comes to trusting vendor assurances over public infrastructure.

The reason this matters beyond one Winnebago meeting is that these "default off" toggles are exactly the kind of thing residents and even council members have no way to independently audit. Communities are told ALPR data is just for plate reads, not movement tracking, and then that promise rests entirely on a company's word and a settings menu nobody outside the department gets to inspect. When a demo "accidentally" shows the opposite, it should reset every prior public assurance to zero, not get treated as an oops.

If your town has one of these systems, the point isn't to take anyone's word for what it can or can't do — public records requests, council meeting minutes, and physical camera audits are how you actually find out. Check our camera map to see what's already been documented near you, and use our take-action page if you want to push your own council for real answers instead of talking points.