Eve is here. Bwahahaha. There is little good news in mass surveillance, so every victory should be celebrated. And if the precedent here is valid, it matters. Cities affected by setbacks against Flock, which extensively collects visual data under the pretext of reading license plates, are not betting on the appeal’s success. Enjoy the schadenfreude of rapid retreat. If we’re really lucky, Flock will suffer irreparable financial damage.
Written by Thomas Neuberger. Originally published on God’s Spies
Image from Flock Safety, the manufacturer of the product
This is the story of the Flock camera you may have never heard of. Flock cameras are sold to gullible individuals and accomplices as simply “license plate readers.” Flock cameras are designed to monitor cars. Of course it’s for safety. Because it’s a crime. But it’s more than that.
spyware supreme
The theory is as follows.
Flock Safety, a fast-growing startup that helps law enforcement find vehicles from fixed cameras, has released a number of new features aimed at making it easier for users to find the vehicles they are looking for.
Overall, the move pushes the company’s software toward providing police with all the cameras at their disposal, including ATM surveillance cameras, homeowners’ Ring doorbells, and even photos taken by someone with a cell phone. The company’s new Advanced Search package (costing between $2,500 and $5,000 a year, depending on how many Flock Safety cameras the agency operates) includes the ability for users to upload a photo of a vehicle from any source, run a search, and see if any of the company’s cameras recognize it.
Don’t just search for license plates. The company has designed software that recognizes vehicle characteristics such as paint color, vehicle type, and distinctive features such as roof racks.
The reason is in the name “Flock Safety”. Because the reason for any intrusion is “to protect your safety.” One police-related site says the following (note: “you” here refers to the police):
7/10 crimes are committed using a vehicle. Track clues and capture vehicle details needed to solve crimes. Flock Safety’s patented Vehicle Fingerprint™ technology allows you to search by vehicle make, color, type, license plate, license plate condition, missing plates, covered plates, paper plates, and vehicle-specific details such as roof racks and bumper stickers.
The reach is amazing. Flock captures everything in sight. all. It’s not just vehicles. people. all.
Do you think that’s a problem? In other words, a Washington state judge ruled that the sweep was so large that the data became public record. Public means open to all.
This alarmed many towns, and the company began losing contracts.
Across the United States, thousands of automatic license plate readers silently monitor the roads. Some people ride along in police cruisers. [note: unrelated link, but a helluva story]Others perch on telephone poles or hang above intersections, clicking away as cars pass by. They remember everything they see, regardless of who is behind the wheel.
It’s a vast and largely invisible network that most people don’t think much about until it’s in the news.
Now, according to a judge’s recent ruling, these photos turned out to be public data. Almost as soon as the decision was made, local authorities scrambled to turn off the cameras.
The story behind this incident is interesting.
The ruling stems from a civil lawsuit involving the cities of Sedro-Woolley and Stanwood in Washington. The two men filed a lawsuit seeking to block a public records request filed by Jose Rodriguez, an Oregon resident. He worked in Walla Walla and sought access to the images as part of a broader investigation into government surveillance.
Judge Elizabeth Yost Naizski sided with Rodriguez, concluding that the data “qualifies as public records subject to the Public Records Act.”
As a result of this decision, both cities immediately shut down their Flock systems. Group cameras are installed along public roads and continuously photograph passing vehicles, including occupants, regardless of whether they are suspected of committing a crime.
Privacy concerns are central to this case. City attorneys defending Rodriguez’s case said releasing the data would violate the privacy of innocent people. But they saw no problem with the government keeping the same data.
Privacy for me, surveillance for others
This leads to the central problem of today’s surveillance state. No one operating the camera wants to be observed. For example, one reason city officials may object to releasing flock data is that city employees themselves are included in the data recorded. It also comes with a camera. You can track them too. Everything means everything to these go-anywhere cameras.
The wealthy want to hide their crimes (hello, Epstein’s friends), but ICE wants to hide their violent criminals. Billionaires think you don’t care about them.
Wearing a mask and hood. ICE agents searching for victims in Chicago, Illinois (source)
But they want every right to go deeper into your stuff. Look at the ICE agent above. Now consider that one of the uses of Flock is to aid ICE in its efforts to strip the whole world as naked as possible.
Or consider the trick that allows cities like Eugene, Oregon, to hide Flock’s cameras from view, allowing them to record unobserved.
Or that Congress never cared about domestic espionage until someone spied on them. Feinstein is making a constitutional argument here.
Too sarcastic?
There’s more I want to say, but I’ll leave it here for now. A rebellion against the Flock is spreading. stay tuned.
This entry was posted by Yves Smith on November 15, 2025 in Guest Post, Law, Politics, Surveillance States.
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