GUEST OPINION
Flock Camera with solar panel (File Photo – Bruxton)
Los Angeles is having a reckoning over Flock Safety and AI-powered surveillance technology. Pasadena and neighboring cities should take note.
By Yadi Younse
The swell of public scrutiny comes in response to the rapid expansion of use of surveillance technology across the nation, often with scant public awareness or input. Most of the focus is on Flock Safety’s Automated License Plate Reader (ALPR) cameras which capture images of vehicles and license plates.
Last month, the Los Angeles Office of Inspector General (LA OIG) released a damning audit of the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) use of ALPR. LAPD also revealed that it had allowed its Flock contract to expire due to concerns about control over the technology. Flock is one of LAPD’s three ALPR vendors. Publicly, LAPD Chief McDonnell stated that the department “…will continue to insist on strong privacy protections, clear accountability and responsible data stewardship.” LAPD CIO Gialamas stated, “This contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras.”
The OIG report documented an alarmingly high rate of inaccurate ALPR alerts. Those false positives can have serious consequences when officers act on them, including traffic stops of people who have done nothing wrong. These inaccuracies raise serious questions about the reliability of ALPR and have resulted in innocent people being pulled over unnecessarily, placing motorists at grave risk of dangerous encounters with law enforcement, including instances of officers drawing weapons based on perceived felony violations.
Numerous cases have also come to light of people being stalked and harassed with the aid of ALPR. In addition, the potential for costly litigation further increases the risks facing local governments.
As Stop LAPD Spying Coalition organizer Grace Zhang put it:
“LAPD knew what Flock was when communities warned them about deportations, stalking, criminalization, and surveillance fueled by technologies like Flock. This is a win for the community because we’ve been able to force this crisis on the city of Los Angeles and LAPD.”
The stakes go far beyond a license plate or a traffic stop. Surveillance systems can place innocent people at risk simply for exercising their constitutional rights—speaking out, attending a protest, going to a religious service, seeking medical care, or associating with people the government may be watching. When vast amounts of location data are collected and shared with little public oversight, the potential for abuse is enormous. That is especially dangerous in an era when political dissent is increasingly being treated as something to monitor, investigate, or even label as a threat.
Advocates have also been alerting Pasadena officials for years about concerns over the constitutionality and privacy implications of ALPR.
In a follow-up article, we’ll dig into the LA OIG report, as well as the ALPR audit conducted by the Pasadena Independent Police Auditor (IPA) and released last month. In short, the audit left much to be desired, and many unanswered questions remain. Pasadena’s ALPR audit should be redone. The LA OIG audit can serve as a guide.
Cities across the nation have turned away from Flock following public pressure and evidence of misuse and abuse. It’s time for Pasadena and neighboring cities to look at the facts and acknowledge that surveillance is not safety.
Yadi Younse is a privacy advocate with the Privacy Defense Alliance and a member of Pasadena Privacy.
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