People want FLOCK surveillance cameras removed | News @ Nine

Our Take

Credit to NBC4 Columbus and reporter Anna Hoffman for covering what's actually a big deal: a city council being forced to ask residents what they think about a surveillance network that usually gets renewed in the dark. That's not how most of these contracts go. Typically a police department signs a deal with Flock Safety, nobody votes on it, and the cameras just start logging every car that passes until someone notices the little solar-paneled poles on their street.

The fact that Columbus residents are organized enough to make "get feedback" a political necessity says something about where public opinion is heading on this technology. People are realizing these aren't passive traffic cameras — they're a searchable database of where you drove, when, and how often, shared across agencies and sometimes with federal immigration enforcement, with almost no transparency into who's pulling your plate history and why. A comment period is a start, but it's worth remembering that public input sessions can also be a pressure-release valve that lets a council say it listened before approving the same contract anyway.

If you're in Columbus or anywhere else wondering whether Flock is already watching your block, check our camera map to see what's nearby, and if you want to push your own council toward real accountability instead of a feedback-form formality, our take-action page has the tools to get started.