Government deciding on which open AI you can use

Our Take

This video, from the channel Digital ID, Mass Surveillance and Digital Currency, zooms out from any single device to ask a bigger question: who gets to decide which tools you're allowed to use, and what happens when that decision-making power concentrates in the hands of governments and a handful of tech giants. It's a useful frame, because the ALPR story we cover every day is really the same story in miniature — a 'safety' technology rolled out with little public debate, run on infrastructure most residents never voted on, and governed by rules written mostly by the vendor and the agencies buying it.

Whether the topic is gatekept AI models or a camera on every corner logging your plate, the pattern repeats: convenience and security get sold to the public while the actual control — over data, over access, over who's watching — stays locked behind closed doors. Flock Safety's rapid expansion across American towns is a textbook example of infrastructure being normalized before anyone asks hard questions about oversight, retention, or who else gets to tap into that data down the line.

We'll keep tracking the Flock side of that equation. Check our map to see what's already been installed near you, and if you want to push back locally, our take-action page has concrete steps for raising this with your city council before the next system gets approved without a public conversation.