How much safer do Flock cameras make us?
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What is the overall purpose of Flock cameras and why are they controversial?
NPR.
If you drive in the U.S., there's a good chance that a flock camera has taken a photo of your license plate.
And if you watch the news, you've probably heard about flock or seen some viral clips of concerned citizens. Like this man who dressed like Darth Vader at a San Diego City Council meeting last month.
The emperor is a fan of flock and we must continue utilizing flock technologies.
Less than a decade ago, Flock started by selling cameras to a couple of neighborhoods. Today, the Atlanta-based company has over 120,000 of them across the United States. Flock itself is worth over $8 billion. This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Ricky Mulvey.
And I'm Waylon Wong. Flock cameras can help police departments find stolen vehicles and violent criminals. Officers can tap into a network that tracks bad apples across counties and states.
But they've also been misused to stalk ex-partners, track protests, find people who are doing stuff that's legal.
Today in the show, we break down the economics of flock. What are police departments getting for their money? And do flock cameras actually make communities safer?
Austin Tice is an American journalist who disappeared over a decade ago while reporting in Syria. And for years, we've been searching for him.
What are police departments getting for their money when they buy Flock cameras?
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Listen to Where Is Austin Tice from NPR's Embedded and BBC Radio 4 on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Stoplight and speeding cameras have been around for decades. They may have led to an unwanted letter in your mailbox a time or two. These cameras are known as automated license plate readers. These are the little cameras mounted on stoplights or white boxes along the highway.
For a long time, these cameras were controlled by individual police departments. If the cops wanted to find you, they had just a few cameras they could check around a city. Flock cameras are different, and that was a big selling point. Its system is easy to search.
How do traditional automated license‑plate readers differ from the newer Flock system?
This is unlike another national database, the FBI's Next Generation Identification System. If you've ever been fingerprinted for a job or arrest, you're in the system.
If someone wants to use the fingerprint database, there's a higher gate to get into the system.
Depending on the state, FLOC can have fewer restrictions. Some police use it to track activities that are legal in some states and illegal in others.
Jason Kebler is the co-founder of 404 Media. He's broken stories on high-profile cases of police misusing the Flock system.
Well, it is interesting because Flock initially pitched itself to homeowners associations and to local police as being a way to recover stolen vehicles. This is explicitly what they are for.
Flock cameras aren't just tracking and recording specific infractions. They're recording all the time and keeping track of where vehicles go.
Flock's default is storing this data for a week, but some police departments have stored it for up to a year.
So they're different from the older generation of automated license plate readers because they're not just recording traffic violations like running a red light. They're recording all the time. They can keep track of a driver's whereabouts even if they aren't suspected of a crime. But these cameras have been used to solve crimes like murders and car thefts.
And car thefts are really tough to solve. Stolen vehicles rarely have a witness. Cops and victims often don't have suspects.
How did researchers measure the impact of Flock cameras on vehicle‑theft rates?
It can seemingly be a random crime.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the overall purpose of Flock cameras and why are they controversial?
0:00–1:27
2
What are police departments getting for their money when they buy Flock cameras?
1:27–2:50
3
How do traditional automated license‑plate readers differ from the newer Flock system?
2:50–4:15
4
How did researchers measure the impact of Flock cameras on vehicle‑theft rates?
4:15–5:58
5
What reduction in car thefts did the study find after Flock cameras were installed?
5:58–7:02
6
Why are the crime‑reduction effects of Flock cameras considered modest?
7:02–8:15
7
What controversial or non‑theft uses of Flock’s network have been reported?
8:15–9:54
8
Which cities or states have paused or cancelled contracts with Flock cameras?
9:54–11:17
Speakers
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