Full interview: Flock Safety CEO addresses mass surveillance, access concerns
The short version: 9NEWS presses Flock Safety's CEO on mass surveillance and federal/ICE access to its ALPR network, and the answers are more corporate reassurance than accountability.
Our Take
Credit to 9NEWS for doing what too few local outlets bother with: sitting the CEO of Flock Safety down and asking directly about mass surveillance and federal access to the company's nationwide license plate reader network. When a company's cameras are quietly logging the movements of everyone who drives through thousands of American towns, a friendly interview isn't enough — someone has to ask who else gets to look at that data, and why.
The immigration enforcement angle is the part that should worry every local official who signed off on a Flock contract thinking it was just about catching car thieves. Once a camera network exists and is searchable, the promises about "local control" tend to evaporate the moment a federal agency comes knocking. CEOs can talk about audits and policies all day, but audits are only as good as the willingness to enforce them, and policies can change with the next contract renewal or the next administration's priorities.
This is exactly why we track where these cameras actually are instead of relying on press statements — check our map to see what's watching your neighborhood, and if you want to push back, our take action page has concrete steps for getting these systems in front of your city council before the data-sharing agreements are already signed.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of 9NEWS, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.