Since 2017 Flock Safety has had one stated goal: eliminate all crime in the United States. Is that what Flock has accomplished? No. In pursuit of that goal, though, the company has built, in partnership with local governments and law enforcement agencies, a mass surveillance network of automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) that can track citizens from coast to coast, examine their behavior, and do so without a warrant or notice. In doing so, Flock and its competitors have shredded our privacy rights.
Now ALPRs are popping up in neighborhoods throughout Ohio; not dissimilar from beady, prying eyes. They appear as small black boxes with an accompanying solar panel mounted on a black metal or telephone pole (I pass two of them just trying to get from my house to the highway). These automatic license plate readers capture not just your license plate, but also your cars make, model, color, rims, roof rack, bumper stickers, and even passengers with artificial intelligence. This sweeping information is then stored for use, and potential abuse, by law enforcement. ALPRs are not Flock’s only product, either; they also sell drones, audio detection devices, video cameras, and various other products, all aggressively marketed to law enforcement in the name of public safety.
Despite Flock making headlines lately, several other companies are equally complicit in the government’s creation of a surveillance network. These companies, like Motorola Solutions or Axon, deserve as much push back as Flock does, because a particular company is not the problem here; it’s the technology itself.
The data retained by these products is an invasive, dangerous attack on our privacy rights here in Ohio. A few localities in the state, like Yellow Springs and Dayton, have taken steps to protect citizen privacy by requiring public input on surveillance decisions through the passage of Community Control Over Police Surveillance (CCOPS) ordinances. Dayton has taken their advocacy a step further by rejecting the use of Flock entirely, trashing their contract and bagging the remaining cameras. ALPRs and their overbearing presence in Ohio have given rise to many groups, such as Flock No in Cleveland and Safety not Surveillance in Columbus, that are calling for their locales to reject this drag-net surveillance technology. Opposition is not just forming because of the increased number of cameras spying on us, but also the potential for abuse of this technology.
Fear that ALPRs will be misused is not unfounded. In fact, Dayton’s rejection of Flock was due to the system being used and accessed for immigration enforcement despite the city’s policy against it. That story has played out across the state and the country. This kind of data sharing between local law enforcement and outside entities like ICE is a cause of concern for many other reasons as well, such as worries that agencies could track citizens across state lines for things that are legal in some states and not others, like abortions. A Texas sheriff used ALPRs to search 83,000 cameras data to track a woman suspected of an abortion under the guise of a “missing persons case” when it was in fact a criminal investigation. Officers are not just tracking suspects though; multiple officers also have been caught stalking and spying on their ex-partners, current partners, and even total strangers with ALPRs. All of this and more has occurred without any warrants, probable cause, or even a reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
The ACLU of Ohio wants the rest of the state to join us in saying NO to ALPRs and other invasive surveillance technology. For more information on the state of surveillance or how to join the fight against these violations of our right to privacy, you can refer to the ACLU of Ohio’s Privacy page as well as our Eyes on You: The State of Surveillance in Ohio toolkit that dives into what you can do to address these issues in your community.
