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Flock cameras and automated license plate readers are often sold as tools for finding stolen cars, wanted suspects, missing people, and serious threats. But a 404 Media report about police allegedly using a Flock camera image for a traffic ticket shows how quickly public-safety surveillance can expand into everyday enforcement. In this episode, Tom, Kevin, and Scott discuss ALPR mission creep, traffic enforcement, retention, data sharing, audit logs, vendor swaps, rideshare dashcam surveillance proposals, and device-tracking risks.
Shared Security is the the longest-running cybersecurity and privacy podcast where industry veterans Tom Eston, Scott Wright, and Kevin Tackett break down the week’s security WTF moments, privacy fails, human mistakes, and “why is this still a problem?” stories — with humor, honesty, and hard-earned real-world experience. Whether you’re a security pro, a privacy advocate, or just here to hear Kevin yell about vendor nonsense, this podcast delivers insights you’ll actually use — and laughs you probably need. Real security talk from people who’ve lived it.
Today on shared security, we're talking about flock cameras and automated license plate readers
and how a system sold as a way to find stolen cars or serious suspects
can quietly become everyday traffic enforcement and vehicle surveillance.
Now the hook here is a recent story about police allegedly using a flock camera image to
give a man a traffic ticket. Now that may sound minor compared with a serious crime investigation
but that is exactly why it matters. Once communities install searchable camera networks the temptation
is always to expand how they are used. So we'll look at how local camera networks can become
regional or national surveillance tools, why policy promises like we don't use this for
traffic enforcement can be fragile and what city residents and listeners should be asking
before approving or renewing these systems in their own community. So joining me as always
for this fun and exciting topic are my co-host Scott Wright and Kevin Tackett.
Sorry for laughing like that. Right as we started I thought of the worst marketing slug possible
for Scott's digital legacy stuff. Oh we're back on that again.
Why because I'm fascinated by this digital legacy thing and I think it's awesome you're doing it
right but you know what we could do like right in the middle of this episode we could say
well you know the flock cameras that keep all this data and what happens that data
when after you're dead let's ask Scott about your oh okay I like it not a tangent perfect
yeah this one is this one not the tangent but yes for me this is a really interesting topic
and I want to be very clear I was actually just talking about Brittany enough this is I struggle
with the entirety of flock cameras both from I hate you and want to burn your buildings down
to a I love what you're doing and I think it's amazing that you're helping
right like it's this spectrum of you know emotional whatever I'm very very very I think
everybody everybody who pays attention to me which most of you shouldn't but um anybody who
pays attention to me knows I hate when we we do something because it protects children or
you know we're trying to make you safer because my those words trigger this opinion of mine
that it's just like no you're not right like like the minute you say I'm doing this to protect
people in my my gut even if you're you really are my gut is you're a liar you're talking
people I hate the government whatever you know whatever the rule is this has been one of the
sins where you know we have if I may right we have this collection of cameras that have been
spread out across at least the United States my understanding is they have they are elsewhere
and we talk about flock cameras but it's very important to realize there are other companies
doing this like for example everybody's ranting about flock cameras and a number of cities
my understanding is this is a number of cities and towns have canceled their flock contract and
then immediately signed a contract with I think it's axon axon or or another company like
them and it's like wait you same thing politicians do right we solved the problem no you didn't
you moved the problem right that's it um the problem here is we've spread out these cameras
we've given a collection of private companies the right to monitor and video the public
and I hope you heard the quotes and italics around that because we've all heard the story about the
flock cameras aren't private property they're facing schools whatever um and then we trust them
does that sound like experience to you um uh I have an issue with this now I want to preface
all this with in the US I'm not speaking about anywhere else in the US we have no expectation
of privacy in punk yep and two everybody talks about well you got your cell phone tracking you
yes it does I think personally I think those are the key issues this guy being misidentified
is awful and horrible and a natural issue with this type of behavior but it is not the issue
the issue is the system was there to make the mistake in my opinion does that make like it
like yeah that makes yeah and and and just one thing to just clarify the the case when I
opened the podcast with that what we're talking about is a the Georgia State Patrol used its flock
cameras to issue a motorcyclist a ticket because the flock camera saw him with his cell phone in
his left hand while he was riding his motorcycle and in the community they clearly state that
flock cameras will not be used for track traffic enforcement so it is a now we're seeing flock
cameras used for more than what they originally said that flock says they're used for which is
finding somebody that just murdered somebody drive away from a crime scene or very serious
things but it's important to note that flock cameras are advertised not for traffic enforcement
track enforcement is a totally there are cameras licensed plate plate cameras for traffic enforcement
however those are typically disclosed to the citizens right that there's a sign on it that says
automatic license plate detection or whatever and so this is a and we're seeing now flock
cameras used for well police are using it to stalk their ex-girlfriends they're using it for all
these other things that it was not intended for and no one's really holding our local governments
or flock accountable for these types of things so I think the core issue here is lying it's always
lying of course I like I get the biggest kick out of when you talk out of both sides of your
face right and and we see this both by politicians by police officers and flock themselves
and bluntly also by the people who are anti-flock right we see the same thing with them but it's
like hey the only thing that this does is track license plate numbers that's it oh by the way
we found 2000 missing people in july alone that's a quote the flocks website yes yes well yeah
and when you look at those 2000 people that were missing a very large number of them were
not found because they detected their license plate and they weren't wearing a license plate on them so
right they were laundering down the side of the road and and my answer is
I I love the idea you know I know people with dementia I dealt with that type of thing
um I love the idea of hey grandma wandered out of the house we don't know where she is
and having some way to turn that on we talked about that with ring and protect the puppies
right I love that idea but if you start the discussion with a lie I can't trust anything
that comes out your mouth after that and if if what we were discussing was whether or not
you stopped the shelves at Publix with tomatoes I'm less concerned but when what we're talking about is
we're monitoring every single thing that happens around the country yeah but trust us we're really
honest except those times we're not that's where I have an issue with this that and that's
going to get into constitutionality uh the lack of warrants and all that kind of stuff
I the focus for me is you lie to start the conversation there is no reason to me to
continue the conversation with you because you're a liar so and I'm not calling the politicians
liars I mean we all know you have to tell politicians lying is is their mouth moving but
flock is lying at the start and then everybody after that is either lying because they know better
or just too dumb to catch the mistake and they're repeating it both would be bad yeah and and just
so everyone's aware like this is a major major issue right now in this country and in fact like
and based on the media I'm seeing reported about flock cameras like people are actually going
to their city councils they're going to the mayor because there are sites now and we'll link
them in our in our show notes of you know the deflux sites right that will tell you in your city
where these flock cameras are and what they're being used for and like there is a lot of
citizen revolts type of activity happening and in fact there's there's some cases already that
people are taking sledgehammers to flock cameras they're destroying them physically because this
has become a major major privacy issue for people because it is beyond just looking for criminals
it is now being used in I mean we've talked about ice potentially using flock cameras we've seen
you know this is the slippery slope that we always like to talk about of how maybe good
intentions start but then enter into you know very very dangerous territory of now they're
recording everything and police are going to use it for whatever they want or police will
abuse it to use for like stalking ex-girlfriend say on you know these very serious types of
privacy concerns so yeah and it goes on and on and on in fact there was another story
that came out that flock wants to start adding phone tracking cell phone tracking to flock cameras
that pick up you know not only the cell phones that are near or in your car or your air pods or
you know any wireless signal it was a bluetooth and yeah wide right right tune yeah yeah one of
the things that I think is important and and I I feel like I have to say this I have a a friend
I met him my wife is was a good family friend of hers and then after I'm married obviously
and they're great people and and I love these people and and and one of them is a cop okay and
so I post on facebook about hey you know flock is bad and here's why and blah blah blah
and and and he came back and he he gave a very good response of hey what about all of this
and this and this and this and this and you know I think you're absolutely right but here's the thing
that I'm concerned about and I actually watched a video of some city council meeting and I can't
remember which one it was I apologize and and the sheriff was up on the you know the the
tables and everything else like that and he was pissed and I understand why he was so angry
right and he ranted about the fact that he had bled for the city and he had you know 20 or 30 years as
the sheriff and he gave up holidays and family time and all this kind of stuff and now he's being
attacked now he was being attacked my understanding is is because he bought the cameras through his
budget without getting approval I'm not gonna comment on that because I don't know enough
about their processes and stuff like that to say yay nay whatever but I think it's important
for us to understand that the vast majority of people on the law enforcement side that are using this
are using it with the idea that they're doing good like this guy can say like look I'm just trying
to keep you safe I'm just trying to help you right so you want to attack me cool so next week
when your car's stolen don't ask me to find it when your mom wanders out don't ask me to look
for her right like he he was running and it's he felt personally and and I get that right because in
his mind he's not this ogre that is telling people and doing bad things he's just trying to find the
tools that enable him to do what he thinks is his job and that's where I go back to the
yeah cool did you have a warrant did you wrestling yeah you don't mean that we have to
don't lose sight and a lot of the people protesting flock cameras have lost sight of this right don't
lose sight of the fact that the majority of the people here and thinking they're doing the right
thing they're just using those words we all we all worry about what we're just trying to protect
should yes for protecting the children or protecting yes you
mobile apps are just part of everyday life now banking healthcare shopping entertainment
you name it and with that comes a lot of trust because users are putting their personal data
directly into your app but here's the reality mobile apps are a growing target a recent survey
found that 72 percent of organizations experienced a mobile app security incident last year and 92
percent say threats are only increasing and the way attackers are going after apps is pretty
sophisticated they're reverse engineering them modifying them and redistributing fake versions
through phishing campaigns side loading and even third-party app stores so from a user's
perspective everything can look completely legitimate that's why taking a proactive
approach to mobile app security really matters you want to stay ahead of these threats not react
after the damage is done this is where guard square comes in they provide advanced protection for both
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and real-time threat monitoring so you can actually see what's happening out there if your mobile
app is critical to your business and it probably is this is something worth paying attention to
you can learn more at guard square dot com that's guard square dot com and i think that is the big
debate because i you know i struggle with this too because like you mentioned earlier kevin like
there are you know i want criminals to be caught like i do like i am not pro criminal like i got
it right but i see the benefit right of especially in situations and there have been
you know lost kids and you know all these things found through flock cameras there but there's also
given the power that this technology has and the surveillance implications there also a lot
of negative things i mean this is the big debate and so where as a society where do we go with
this from this point forward because flock keep in mind these guys are a business they
are here to make as much money as possible and they will continue to add features and functions and
more surveillance tech to these things because law enforcement is buying them and and we could
talk about the debate of how these things are being purchased because that's a whole other
story oftentimes police are using discretionary budgets and things that don't have to go
through a city council for approval which is also very dangerous because that's
happening in a lot of communities today is like police want these cameras but yet the community
doesn't and then now there is a friction point of well we don't want these in our community and
it's getting heated it's getting very very heated so you know we don't have the answers
to this but i think it is an important debate that we should all have and i think one of
the things of you know i encourage people to look on these maps to you know like these
deflox sites to see where these cameras are and if this is something concerning to you you should
speak up you should speak up to your local representative and your governments and express
your concerns about this because it is going beyond the original intent and i think this is
kind of a turning point that we're seeing right now at least in the united states but
but uh scott what's your opinion from the canadian perspective i was just gonna say you
know i've seen more city council videos on youtube of uh between this and and data center
yeah debates right welcome to the united states how do you decide you know what's the priority here
right um but i think you're you're right there's certainly there's the good side and the bad
side i guess the question is is there a balance you know is are the the promise and intent of
the good motivations uh just a thinly veiled cover for you know somebody like mr. burns
sitting in the back room and envisioning all the things that they might do with the data from
these cameras and it also makes me think you know in the uk they they don't have notifications i don't
think at least according to the all the bbc detective shows you know every every 20 meters
there's uh everywhere yards there's there's a ccdv camera that will get get the anpr
and uh and the face of who's driving it right i don't know if that's real or or not but i
certainly don't get notifications uh in that context so i i don't know for sure but i i think
i suspect that the malicious or selfish motivations are far far away the the good intent of the
people that are trying to do good things so we do have to kind of hold those companies
and the governments that are procuring those things accountable i would also point out just to
throw another wrench into this whole thing is the disparity of how the cameras are rolled out
i've seen a significant number of maps including of my local area where and and i will acknowledge
the fact that the three middle-aged white guys are the ones talking about this but the fact that
largely minority areas are where the the the majority of the cameras are rolled out
and i've heard the racist trope well yeah but that's where the crime is yeah you're right if you
monitor one section that's where you're gonna find crime because you're monitoring it but
that to me is another aspect that has to be addressed here is if we're gonna roll out
something like this and like i said like you said earlier we're not pro criminal if we have a legitimate
good way to monitor for things and help prevent crime um that's awesome but let's not just target
certain areas of town right right yeah yeah it's a really really good point so yeah so finally if
i may not finally finally haha we're done um the last thing i wanted and i reserve the
right to throw other things out there you know flock did update a lot of stuff and and while they
don't claim the matter of fact they outright say that it's not because of all the uproar it's funny
that it happened right after the uproar they have updated their public stance on things including
uh their default was 30 days of retention of data their default and their recommendation to
departments is now seven which oh that's cool right uh they also threw out they they put out a
number of updates about um hey uh we're not gonna let people just abuse this uh but of course the
way they're preventing that is still rife with abuse it's kind of like one of the things they
talked about is you know data accuracy and and their answer about data accuracy is like well
look it's up to the cop to really look at the data and see if it's right and it's like but but it's a
tech right like yeah yeah no i and then and then like their idea of transparency is hey we have a
transparency site but but it's up to the local area to determine whether or not they they use it
right it's like guys you're basically just distracting this this doesn't actually solve any
of the actual problems we're talking about um and that was my shade is that was released this
morning i know that we're this isn't released until next monday so we're recording on the 13th
if that helps oh yeah is one that happens and i say that because it because it's important except
i expect flock to update and edit this response because it it really is a crappy response yeah
wanted to just add another quick note while we're talking i was looking on uh just doing a search
to see about if there are any flock cameras here in Ottawa where i am and um found the
in the Ottawa reddit um it was only a couple months ago somebody posted that it's actually
not just Ottawa that they're they're not using it specifically they're they're considering it
but they do already have cruiser mounted license plate recognition stuff so as you said alternative
ways oh yeah but an interesting comment on the post thread was that in the in different cities
hundreds of cops are being suspended like yeah Toronto Toronto has like a total population
i think around 3 million people 600 cops suspended from misuse wow just just according to some unofficial
numbers posted in reddit right that's a lot and three or four other uh smaller cities with a hundred
or more cops suspended which is pretty shocking that's that's incredible um now one of the things
you commented earlier tom a little bit was the the people that are going around and
destroying flock cameras and i want to caution everybody that based on my read and conversations
with people who are very very pro flock destruction of cameras are 100 not allowed even if you're
protesting unless you're in boston and you throw the flock cameras into the harbor that is the
only place you're allowed to to destroy uh things in protest is boston and you have to
throw them in the harbor okay huzzah huzzah just like uh you know just like the tea party yeah yeah
if it's taxation without representation or flock cameras video recording without something yeah
something or another yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and as you know this is we're just parroting here so
don't listen to whatever kevin's going on for too long yeah yeah i think that's a great time to end
the podcast so uh so yeah we will keep updated on this story this is a large large large topic
obviously and we have only really just scratched the surface but if you are interested in in
learning more about what's happening with flock cameras we'll link everything in the show notes
for you really good like the 404 media podcast is covering this pretty much almost every episode
and definitely check those guys out there they're kind of the leading reporters of what's going on
flock right now and and we'll we'll link some other resources like the deflock website which
you definitely should check out but uh but yeah with that i think that's all we have time for
and until next time stay safe stay secure and stay private thank you for listening or watching
if you like this episode hit subscribe share it with your friends and colleagues or jump
into our community at sharedsecurity.net slash supporter to keep the conversation going thanks
again and we'll see you next week for another episode of shared security