Is Tech Evolving or Devolving? The Scary Truth About Privacy
The short version: A tech podcast's offhand mention that Flock cameras now profile driving habits, not just plates, shows surveillance creep hiding inside 'convenience' news cycles.
Our Take
The Lab Tech Show buries the lede here. Sandwiched between Walmart's tap-to-pay rollout and streaming price hikes is a throwaway line that should stop you cold: Flock cameras aren't just reading plates anymore, they're profiling how you drive. That's a meaningful escalation. A network originally pitched as a tool to find stolen cars is quietly becoming a behavioral fingerprinting system, and it's happening with zero public debate about where that data goes or who gets to use it.
This is exactly the pattern we track — surveillance expansion gets normalized by sliding it into a broader 'tech is changing fast' narrative alongside contactless payments and subscription costs, as if it's all the same inevitable march of progress. It's not. Tap-to-pay at Walmart is a convenience trade-off you opt into at checkout. A camera network logging your driving patterns on public roads is not optional, and most people don't even know it exists in their town.
Credit to The Lab Tech Show for flagging it, even in passing — these details matter more than the headline tech news around them. If you want to know whether this kind of tracking is already happening where you live, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for it to show up in a tech roundup, visit our take-action page to push back locally.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of The Lab Tech Show, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.