Two South Carolina police officers fired over alleged misuse of Flock cameras

Our Take

Credit to WYFF News 4 for digging into a story that Flock Safety and its police partners would rather you not think about too hard: the cameras aren't just vulnerable to outside hackers or policy loopholes, they're vulnerable to the cops running them. When two officers in South Carolina get fired over alleged misuse of this system, that's not an edge case — that's the entire warning label we've been trying to put on this technology since day one.

Every time a department sells a Flock network to a city council, the pitch is the same: it's just for finding stolen cars and Amber Alerts, trust us, there are audit logs. But audit logs only catch misuse after it's already happened, after someone's ex, neighbor, or local reporter has already been tracked. The people with access to a database of everyone's daily movements are still just people, and this case is a reminder that 'trust us' isn't an oversight mechanism.

This is exactly why we built the map — so communities can see how far this surveillance net already reaches in their own backyard before the next misuse story breaks on the news. If your town is on it, or should be, head over to take action and push your local officials for real accountability instead of a press release promise.