How is Flock addressing surveillance concerns?

Flock, the company behind a nationwide network of license plate readers used by police departments, is shaking things up in response to a growing backlash against its tech. It's no secret that the company's network of 120,000 cameras has raised some serious concerns about mass surveillance and police abuse - especially in cases where officers have used the tech to stalk and harass current or former romantic partners. I mean, with that many cameras, officers have access to a vast pool of searchable location data, which is a pretty powerful tool.

The company's trying to address these concerns by introducing some new rules: now, officers will have to enter a criminal case number before conducting a search, which is supposed to verify that each search has a legitimate purpose. Flock's also expanding its automatic auditing system, which analyzes officer search activity and flags suspicious searches to administrators. But critics are skeptical - they argue that these safeguards might not be enough to prevent abuse, given that officers have found ways to circumvent similar safeguards in the past.

As Flock faces a growing backlash against its tech, with some cities dropping contracts and states passing laws to ban license plate readers altogether, the company's CEO, Garrett Langley, says the backlash is driven by misinformation about the company's tech. But critics say that's not the case - they think the concerns are driven by the sheer scale of surveillance that Flock's cameras enable. It's a pretty valid concern, if you ask me: with license plate readers becoming more ubiquitous, officers have more latitude to investigate people without first establishing suspicion of a crime, which raises some serious concerns about the erosion of Americans' privacy.

The ACLU and other civil liberties groups have been advocating for more stringent safeguards, and while Flock's new rules are a step in the right direction, they're seen as incremental and insufficient. To really address the concerns about surveillance and abuse, Flock may need to open its systems to independent researchers and implement more robust safeguards to prevent abuse. As Garrett Langley didn't explicitly say in this context but has said elsewhere, the devil's in the details - and it's clear that Flock still has a lot of work to do to win back public trust. Ultimately, the company's changes will need to be carefully monitored to determine their effectiveness in preventing abuse and protecting Americans' privacy.

Source: MIT Technology Review