Company touts new facial recognition technology to stop crime, but is it Orwellian?
The short version: KMOV St. Louis asks the right question about a new facial recognition pitch—we'd answer it: yes, it's Orwellian, and it's the same playbook Flock used to blanket America in plate readers.
Our Take
Credit to KMOV St. Louis for at least putting the word 'Orwellian' in the headline instead of burying it under a press release about 'public safety.' Every time a company rolls out a new biometric surveillance tool, the pitch is identical: this will only be used to catch bad guys, there are policies in place, trust us. That's the exact script Flock Safety used to get thousands of ALPR cameras installed in neighborhoods with zero public debate. Facial recognition is just the next rung on the same ladder — more cameras, more data points, more ways to track people who've done nothing wrong.
What almost never makes it into these local news segments is who's actually reviewing the vendor's claims, what the retention policy really looks like once the cameras are live, and whether any elected body approved this before it showed up on a pole. Departments rarely turn this stuff off once it's installed, and facial recognition combined with plate-reading networks creates a surveillance dragnet that goes far beyond 'stopping crime' — it builds a permanent, searchable record of everyone's movements and faces.
If your town is entertaining a pitch like this, don't wait for the ribbon-cutting to ask questions. Check our map to see what's already been deployed near you, and use our take-action guide to push your council for real oversight before facial recognition becomes the next thing nobody remembers voting for.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KMOV St. Louis, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.