'Flock safety' cameras give police extra help
The short version: Chesapeake police tout Flock's recovery numbers, but 13News Now repeats the department's stats without asking who else sees this data or how long it's kept.
Our Take
Credit to 13News Now for putting a number on Flock's local footprint in Chesapeake, but notice where those numbers come from: the police department itself. "28 firearms, 118 stolen cars, 4 missing people" sounds impressive until you ask the questions local news rarely does — how many plates were scanned to get those hits, how many innocent drivers got flagged by mistake, and who else can query that data beyond Chesapeake PD. Flock's own audit logs across the country have shown officers running plates for personal reasons, sharing access with federal agencies, and searching networks that span thousands of cameras nationwide.
"Extra help" is doing a lot of work in that headline. What isn't extra is the permanent record of everywhere your car goes, retained and searchable long after any crime is solved or never happens at all. Recovery statistics are the easy sell; they never come with a breakdown of retention periods, audit failures, or which outside agencies pulled data from that same feed. Chesapeake residents deserve that second half of the story just as much as the recovery count.
If you want to see whether Chesapeake's cameras — or ones near you — are part of this network, check our map, and if you want your city council to answer the questions this segment didn't, our take-action page has a starting point.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of 13News Now, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.