Who owns these Flock cameras? I heard it’s a private entity and not government.
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It’s privately owned by the Flock Group Inc (Garrett Langley, Matt Feury, and Paige Todd). Several cities already banned them (listed at the bottom) and other’s are fighting them because they auto-magically were installed in their area without any permission. They originally contracted out to police agencies to be license plate readers but they’ve expanding to absorbing feeds from private cameras and business security cameras. This reduces the entire country to the same privacy level as the UK and Israel. Now they can even see/listen inside your home if you use one of their partners (like Amazon Ring’s indoor cameras). Their lack of security controls allows anyone to stalk you, the cops, their ex lovers, etc if they watch a 5 minute YouTube video.
If the government really wants a surveillance state, they need to follow the proper channels instead of hiding behind a private company. I realize the gov can already track us and listen using our mobile phones. The difference is you generally aren’t accused and fined by a private company for crimes. The government builds a case and uses that information. Flock’s AI send the recommendations to the cops which aren’t always accurate and then you have a painful battle to get things rectified.
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Denver, Colorado: Ended its contract and removed all 110 Flock cameras.
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Woodburn, Oregon: Permanently removed its camera network following an audit that confirmed federal immigration agencies accessed local data.
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Fort Collins, Colorado: Voted to end the use of the cameras.
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Olympia, Washington:
Discontinued its Flock camera network in response to data-sharing and privacy concerns.
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Columbia Heights, Minnesota: Unanimously canceled its Flock Safety contract to protect resident data.
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Verona, Wisconsin: Voted to pull out of the Flock network over civil liberties concerns
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