Once you know what a Flock camera looks like, they're hard to miss. The black cameras attached to solar panels have sprung up across North Texas, and the country, with law enforcement using the license plate readers to track cars.
Police say they're invaluable for solving crimes, but many North Texas residents have expressed privacy concerns — most recently in Denton and Carrollton.
Fernando Alfonso III, Texas editor for The New York Times, wrote about the controversy surrounding Flock cameras in North Texas for his recent article, "Flock Cameras Can Track Every Car in America. Police Love Them. Citizens Don’t."
Alfonso joined NTX Now host Ron Corning to talk about what the cameras are being used for and why they've raised so many concerns.
These interview highlights have been edited for length and clarity. To hear the full conversation, click the 'listen' button above.
Flock cameras started popping up across the country in 2020, with now more than 120,000 of them operating nationwide in every state except Alaska. Alfonso says what makes them so ubiquitous is that they are easy to install. The attached solar panels mean they don't need to be hardwired into a city's power grid.
"Literally overnight you can see them just crop up in your community, with little to no actual work needing to go into putting them up," he said.
Cameras have become relatively common in the average American's life. We drive on toll roads with cameras that scan our license plates, set up doorbell cameras to see who is coming and going from our homes, and even place cameras inside our homes to monitor babies or pets.
But the main concern most people have with Flock cameras is how they store and share data. Flock cameras are connected by a searchable, national network that can be used for a myriad of reasons, both within and outside the law.
Alfonso points to this in his article:
"A Texas officer used Flock’s cameras to track a woman across state lines who was suspected of self-administering an abortion. Officers across the country have abused their access to Flock’s cameras, including to track romantic partners, resulting in discipline and termination. Los Angeles and Dayton, Ohio, among other cities, recently suspended their contracts with Flock to prevent immigration authorities from accessing data from the cameras. Dayton resorted to covering the cameras with trash bags. In cities like Houston, Oakland, Calif., and Grand Junction, Colo., residents have taken matters into their own hands, with police reports and surveillance footage documenting Flock cameras being cut down, splattered with paint and even shot."
Alfonso spoke to one of the largest police unions in Texas, which told him that abuse of this shared database is something they take very seriously. Even so, he says the accessibility of the data is concerning.
"Because with a few keystrokes, you can find the license plate of a loved one or a family member or a former coworker," he said. "It's just a lot of power in the hands of ordinary officers."
Flock has argued that officers need a reason for searching the database, but Alfonso's article cites multiple examples of abuse and there appears to be bipartisan support for removing the license plate readers or putting more regulations around them.
"It is really one of these amazing moments where we're seeing a spike in civic engagement around the country from liberals, conservatives, everybody in between and on the fringes even," Alfonso said. "Americans just don't want to be surveilled."
Ron Corning is a co-host of KERA's NTX Now. Got a tip? Email Ron at rcorning@kera.org.
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