Every one of this town’s Flock cameras was cut down

When I first started covering Flock Safety and its license plate reader cameras, it felt easy to stay on top of every headline. But in the past several weeks, as you’ve likely noticed, not a day seems to go by where we don’t hear at least one new story about a town cancelling their contract with Flock or a vigilante destroying the company’s license plate reader cameras.

This story, however, stood out. The fact that someone managed to destroy each of Flock’s eight cameras in the city of Winona, Minnesota, shows just how much things have escalated. Despite the high-profile nature of the case, police still haven’t made any arrests.

It’s unclear what precautions, if any, the vandal or vandals took. But the topic has become so popular that social media videos teaching people how to get away with “hypothetically” destroying Flock’s cameras have racked up millions of views on social media.

But not everyone is looking to hide their identity. A man in Arizona recently backed his truck into a Flock camera before taking credit for the action to local reporters.

“I kept backing up and saw it bend back, and I saw it looking at the sky,” Ed Kahle told Fox 10 Phoenix. “And said, ‘That’s good enough.’”

And Kahle isn’t exactly the first. Back in February, Straight Arrow spoke with 41-year-old Virginia resident Jeffrey Scott Sovern, a man charged with destroying 13 Flock cameras. Investigators say a search warrant executed at Sovern’s residence uncovered components that included six solar panels used by Flock’s cameras.

Sovern, who pleaded not guilty and is awaiting pretrial, did not outright take credit for the destruction. But he also hasn’t been shy about his views on license plate reader cameras.

Sovereign told Straight Arrow he believes license plate reader systems are unconstitutional and that Flock is responsible for ushering in “an unhealthy surveillance state.”

It seems for many cities, taking down the cameras might be easier than dealing with the public backlash. But the issue isn’t likely to end any time soon as Flock now has over 120,000 cameras in operation across the U.S.  

What I’m reading

• Flock Pitched a Plan To Turn Uber and Lyft Drivers Into Roaming Surveillance Vehicles: 404 Media obtained a presentation from Flock Safety detailing a proposal to collect footage from 350,00 rideshare vehicles. The plan, which Flock says it never executed, would have used drivers’ dashcams to collect license plate data.
• Our personal information is for sale on the internet. We know — we bought it: Straight Arrow’s media, bias and algorithms reporter Mark Keierleber wrote an excellent piece showing how he was able to purchase people’s personal information from a data broker. If you’ve ever wondered how easily your information can be obtained, you’ll want to give this a read.
• Flock Cameras Can Track Every Car in America. Police Love Them. Citizens Don’t: The New York Times has a great roundup on the current state of Flock Safety, or, more particularly, the immense backlash it’s continuing to face over its license plate reader cameras. A topic that once produced a few headlines every few weeks is now in the news daily as citizens protest, and in more and more cases vandalize, the company’s surveillance technology.

What do you want to know?

If you have a question you’d like me to answer about privacy, send me an email at mthalen@san.com or share it below. I’ll keep all your personal details private.