Gardner police discontinue Flock cameras as license plate readers face scrutiny

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ccocacola1 about 2 hours ago 51 commentsRead Article on kmbc.com

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Discussion (51 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

neom•about 1 hour ago

"Authorities have charged or accused at least 50 law-enforcement officers of using license-plate readers for unauthorized purposes, including to stalk women without their knowledge or consent, a Post analysis of police and court records found.

In 26 of these cases, police investigators and prosecutors said the officers used the technology to spy on their wives, their girlfriends, their exes, their exes’ new partners or women they wanted to meet."

https://archive.is/fxZWT

And 3 more just a week ago in Georgia: https://www.cbsnews.com/atlanta/news/3-georgia-deputies-arre...

If you're curious how this plays out in practice, investigation room video of an officer who confesses to using one to create an alert on a woman so he could pull her over later to get her instagram: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3UfAMzz9Lc

viccis•about 1 hour ago

The ones here (not in Texas) were being queried by Texas cops looking for women getting out of state abortions.

atmavatar•about 1 hour ago

    "Over 1,200 vendors had access to our information through the Flock system," Steinmetz said, adding he did not know the identities of all those entities.

Even if for some strange reason you're OK with the police having access to the surveillance data (despite multiple recent articles revealing abuse), I'd like to think most people would take issue with random third parties also having access to it.

Flock cameras and their ilk are not OK in a civilized, free society.

SlightlyLeftPad•about 1 hour ago

For what legitimate reason would Flock be giving 1,200 vendors access to the city’s information? I don’t see how they’re going to be able to feasibly walk back from this without taking a massive punch to their business.

And also great timing because Flock almost swept it all under the rug [1]:

1: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flock-ceo-apologizes-surveillan...

skywhopper•42 minutes ago

No legitimate reason, but money plus investor pressure plus lack of privacy laws goes a long way towards self-justification.

sneak•about 1 hour ago

By the exact same token, the same thing applies to payment cards and cashless systems in general, but everyone seems to be fine with universal suspicionless surveillance by a private compant in that case.

jmpman•39 minutes ago

I've been thinking about this for a while. The only place I want flock cameras is at the entrances of the mall parking lot. I can't articulate why that seems acceptable, and yet I view everywhere else as an overstep.

throwitaway222•about 1 hour ago

Maybe we need to upgrade the system to be more like...

To use this service copy and paste your authorization:

634534534535453454565646567880123843489579823374234

Thank you!

Your authorization gives you permission to search for plate 5VFA213 only. Signed by Judge Ja....

The problem isn't flock either. The next system that replaces this is going to be self-charging and swapping out Drones that scan large areas 15 feet above traffic and follow people it hasn't seen on a daily basis (non-normal events). Good luck us.

thangalin•about 2 hours ago

https://i.ibb.co/WWWYznHX/flock-future.png ;-)

Context: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-knowledge/

sneak•about 1 hour ago

* Flock (YC S17)

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/flock-safety

blackoil•17 minutes ago

Is this the reason why this story is flagged and pushed down to 2nd page?

veec_cas_tant•13 minutes ago

Probably because there’s a new Flock-bashing post every day or two on here, and there’s barely any tech relevance for a global audience.

ofjcihen•about 1 hour ago

YC has somehow managed to be affiliated with some of the most egregiously crap companies along with the okay ones.

SlightlyLeftPad•42 minutes ago

YC funds the “idea.” Despite having deep issues with this particular business, looking at global trends, I really only see one of two possible outcomes.

1) They’ll survive through this hopefully with some kind of significant reform (on paper at the very least)

2) Flock will suffer from the PR and fail, with the idea being filed under “before its time.” Ultimately, the idea persists. Mass surveillance and LPR tech will continue to roll out under a different name or structure.

TylerE•41 minutes ago

VCs are cancer. YC is one of the biggest VCs. What do you expect?

aussieguy1234•about 1 hour ago

There are multiple cases of people being falsely imprisoned because police believed Flock over actual evidence. In each case Flock was wrong.

hackernud3s•40 minutes ago

Yes and in each case of people being correctly imprisoned, Flock was right. That's because it's a tautology.

tptacek•about 1 hour ago

Can you cite some of them? You'd be looking for cases where it's Flock at fault, not where police simply decided to look for the wrong car (like: "any black Honda CR-V that passed this intersection at 10AM").

ceejayoz•about 1 hour ago

https://www.riaclu.org/news/flock-safety-image-led-to-false-...

https://reason.com/2026/08/13/flock-cameras-and-license-plat...

https://katv.com/news/local/sherwood-stop-sparked-after-floc...

For the edit specifically: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/11/human-toll-alpr-errors

> Turns out that the ALPR had misread a ‘3’ as a ‘7’ on Green’s license plate. But what is even more egregious is that none of the officers bothered to double-check the ALPR tip before acting on it.

tptacek•about 1 hour ago

Thanks! Reading now.

ofjcihen•about 1 hour ago

I like that you told him what you wanted him to find to give to you so that you could read it.

The point was his to prove I guess but I can’t help but wonder if you were actually interested in being convinced you wouldn’t have just taken the time to do a quick GPT/Google search.

e2le•about 2 hours ago

Isn't it a bit disingenuous to refer to them as merely license plate readers?

esalman•about 1 hour ago

They're not, according to "Authorities".

> Authorities believe the at-large criminals snuck up behind the cameras with spray foam canisters and sprayed the lenses before the cameras had a chance to ID them.

https://www.facebook.com/100064614555569/posts/1467922555371...

lemoncookiechip•about 2 hours ago

Cop-issued spousal trackers. 50 cases and counting.

ceejayoz•about 1 hour ago

50 known cases.

edit: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2026/08/19/we-foun...

> At least 69 police officials have been accused, charged with or convicted of misusing Flock’s system or other license-plate readers for unauthorized purposes, The Post has found, and in at least 15 of these cases, someone outside of the police department — including victims, activists and journalists — first identified the potential misuse.

> Records and interviews show that departments across the country do not regularly audit their officers’ Flock use, a practice recommended by the company, and some law enforcement agencies have no formal training programs or written policies describing how the technology should be used.

lemoncookiechip•about 1 hour ago

Exactly. One cop used it to track his almost 800 times in a few months.

protocolture•31 minutes ago

Isnt it a bit disingenuous to imply that license plate readers aren't infringing enough to be a problem?

arkhiver•about 2 hours ago

They will just switch to Axon

asteroidburger•about 1 hour ago

Does Axon offer the same sort of national, single-database that Flock does?

I'm far more inclined to trust my local department to manage their own database vs. a single database that everyone contributes to and reads from.

monksy•about 1 hour ago

They connect into the flock network.

https://investor.axon.com/2020-04-02-Axon-Partners-with-Floc...

EDIT: There is a claim they terminated their partnership by last year..but who knows.

https://www.404media.co/cities-are-ditching-flock-immediatel...

ncr100•about 1 hour ago

Then society may just regulate the technology.

sneak•about 1 hour ago

My angle grinder is vendor-agnostic.

s1artibartfast•about 1 hour ago

Unfortunate that so many people come at this with a black and white perspective.

Cameras like Flock have obvious value and use cases. They also have obvious misuse cases.

The obvious solution is to adopt and regulate the technology so that I can be used in the way is that the public wants that allows reasonable privacy.

tyre•about 1 hour ago

1. We shouldn't have to wait for regulation to accept this. It should be locked down before going live. It's reasonable for people to want it gone until it's thoughtfully and *transparently* rolled out.

2. I agree that there are legitimate use cases and I still don't want it to exist. I do not trust our government or police force to use this properly, as demonstrated by the abuse that has already happened.

Currently there is a US Green Card holder—a legal permanent resident—who is facing deportation for protesting Palestine apartheid. Not for supporting Hamas, not for called for terrorism, not for attacking anyone. Simply for protesting their homeland being occupied and bombed.

This government is not trustworthy. Police can't be trusted with this ability. There are trade-offs for not having it, fine, but there are trade-offs for having it. The erosion of privacy and liberty is too costly.

brk•about 1 hour ago

Technically, most people came at it with no strong perspective. The pushback developed when it became undeniably clear the the devices were being abused, and there was no accountability. In particular, Flocks CEO has handled this extremely poorly.

I’m all for the positive use cases, and have been involved with several similar products, but in this case Flock has completely mishandled the situation and created the situation they now find themselves in.

dpkirchner•about 1 hour ago

It is 100% impossible to secure the system and its use sufficiently to provide reasonable privacy for the public.

Murfalo•44 minutes ago

Obvious? How do you propose adopting and regulating the technology in a way that the public wants and that allows reasonable privacy?

ImPostingOnHN•about 1 hour ago

That's the obvious solution in a perfect world.

Another part of that obvious solution is to take them down until those sufficient regulations and civilian oversight of police are in place.

slowin•about 1 hour ago

Is it obvious that regulation will fix this? I never want to be filmed in public constantly. Ever. There's no reason that would justify that.

sneak•about 1 hour ago

This is a clueless take, tbh. There is no regulation that can stop these being misused at scale to violate people's rights. None. It's the same with FAA702.