A deputy from the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office, Texas, recently searched across 83,000 cameras for a woman whom he believed had had an abortion. The episode sparked anger against Flock cameras, which are increasingly seen as violating the privacy of people in Texas and other states.
As reported by Gadget Review, a local Texas deputy used Flock Safety’s “National Lookup” system to search cameras across 6,809 networks shared by law enforcement. Documents showed that the officer wrote “had an abortion, search for female” in the network, querying over 83,000 cameras across the country, including in states where abortion is legal.
All police agencies that use Flock’s system have access to it, which shares over 75% of all footage from participating districts. Flock cameras can identify people using license plates, timestamps, location, direction of travel, and more. For the so-called “broader searches,” no warrant is needed, and officers only have to provide a justification, which can be as vague as “investigation.”
Texas Outraged at Excessive Surveillance
The actions of the Texas police officer left residents deeply suspicious of Flock’s system when discussing the news on r/Texas. One of them said: “This is exactly why Flock cameras are a bad idea, empowering authoritarians to take away your freedom for whatever reason they choose.”
Another concerned resident asked: “How did a deputy have access to 83,000 cameras? Or is the feed available to all LEOs across the state? What are the permissions for users? Who gets to see audit data? Why aren’t more people concerned about this?”
Other Texans were equally concerned, commenting, “Big Brother is here. I thought the retaliation to it would be far greater, but here we are. The most ironic part of it all is Republicans eat this [expletive] up.” Someone responded: “This is going to be a problem. I get the intent for the Flock cameras, but if they are going to be used to stalk people, then they need to go.”
A few users also compared the situation to China, which is often criticized in the U.S. for having an “authoritarian” government: “The same people who were complaining about China being a police state are the ones who want our country to be a police state.” Someone else responded: “At this point, people in China are safer than we are since the police here are looking for people to detain who are not criminals.”
As Flock cameras continue to be used across the United States, they will likely remain controversial, as many people oppose their widespread use.
