Flock Safety Says No Facial Recognition — But Tracks YOUR Car
The short version: Flock Off points out that 'we don't do facial recognition' is a dodge — tracking every car's make, model, color, and movements is still dragnet surveillance of people.
Our Take
Credit to Flock Off for calling out one of Flock Safety's favorite talking points. "We don't use facial recognition" sounds reassuring in a press release, but it's a bit of a magic trick — it directs your attention away from what the cameras actually do. You don't need to identify a face when you can log every vehicle that passes a camera, tag it by make, model, color, and unique features, and stitch together a timeline of where that car has been. That's not anonymous data collection, that's a movement history attached to your household.
Cars are proxies for people. Track the vehicle long enough and across enough intersections, and you've effectively tracked the driver — where they sleep, who they visit, what church or clinic or protest they attended. Flock's networked system means this isn't one camera on one street; it's a growing web of them sharing data across jurisdictions, often without the public ever voting on it. "No facial recognition" is true and also almost beside the point.
If you want to see how far this web has spread in your own area, check our camera map, and if you're ready to push back on a system that was installed without much public debate, our take-action page has concrete next steps.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Flock Off, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.