System considered to be ‘mass surveillance project’
By Dylan Kresak, Daily Caller News Foundation
Some Americans are saying “Get The Flock Out” to the widespread license-plate cameras that record their movements and collect their data across the country.
Flock Safety surveillance cameras have become a focal point for American concerns over technology and privacy across the U.S., Axios reported. Communities such as Lago Vista, Texas, have explicitly condemned the cameras and voted to remove them, while other regions like Apache Junction, Arizona, still utilize the Flock systems to support law enforcement work.
Police departments believe Flock cameras assist them in stopping crime, but critics at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), consider the cameras a mass surveillance project.
“I’ve been fighting mass surveillance for almost 25 years at the ACLU, and I really haven’t seen anything like the popular uprising against license plate scanning that we’re seeing now,” Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“I think it reflects the fact that people really don’t like to be watched,” Stanley added. He explained that license-plate recognition has been an ongoing issue since 2013.
Stanley believes there is a nationwide consensus across partisan and ideological lines that Americans do not want Flock cameras in their neighborhoods.