Citizens need answers about Flock

I saw it immediately as I walked into Rotary Park on Oct. 18 for the “No Kings” rally. A shiny new trailer with a large solar panel, telescoping pole and a cluster of cameras, proudly displaying Durango Police Department markings. I snapped a quick photo of the device and thought it was a heck of a coincidence given what had been on my mind during the previous weeks.

That day, I was carrying a petition I had written to end our Police Department’s contract with Flock Safety, the private, mass-surveillance technology start-up that operates the network of 21 video cameras across our city marketed as “automated license plate readers.” The Flock system continuously captures images of every vehicle it sees and creates a searchable history of their locations dating back at least 30 days. Any officer with a Flock login can obtain a location history of any vehicle captured by the cameras by searching for the license plate number or another description of the vehicle, including make and model, color, dents, bumper stickers and more. No warrant, probable cause or reasonable suspicion is required to use the system, just a stated reason for a search in a text box, in which users typically type something like “crime” or “investigation.” The system is also capable of searching and generating results from descriptions of people, a feature Flock calls “Freeform Search.”

Besides being able to recognize a vehicle without a license plate, the other feature that sets the Flock system apart is the connection to a nationwide network of cameras. More than 80,000 intrusive Flock cameras have been installed in 5,000 cities, and anyone with a Flock login can search this nationwide system to find a history of the movements of a vehicle (and by proxy a person) across the country. The system is unprecedented in its scope, capabilities and potential for abuse.

Part of what motivated me to write the petition was the reporting this summer that Flock Safety, as part of a “federal pilot program,” had shared camera data with a whole host of federal agencies, including Customs and Border Protection and ICE, without informing local jurisdictions this was taking place. This powerful surveillance system has been weaponized to hunt down immigrants and others deemed undesirable by this administration.

I also read coverage of a sheriff’s department in Texas that used the Flock system to track a woman across state lines they suspected of having an abortion. An officer in Kansas used Flock to stalk his ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. Police officers were found giving their logins to ICE agents, and Flock logins have been found for sale on the dark web. The list seems to go on and on.

I submitted a records request to learn a little more about how our department is using the system. The documents revealed that the department had, in fact, purchased a new camera trailer from Flock Safety this summer, and the promotional images on the Flock website matched the snapshot I took at Rotary Park.

The records request also revealed something much more concerning.

Examination of a “Network Sharing Report” in the disclosure revealed DPD had shared access to Durango’s camera network with 603 agencies across the country, including sheriff’s departments in Texas and Florida, where state laws require departments to work with ICE. By crosschecking with the list of ICE collaborators on the Homeland Security website, I found 60 law enforcement agencies that were present on the Durango “Network Sharing Report.” Our police department has given ICE a way to track the movements of immigrants in our community through our local camera system.

We have here in Durango a mass surveillance system that tracks the movements of everyone in our community, shares data across the country, has a high potential for abuse and puts our immigrant community at risk.

If anything I wrote concerns you, tell our City Council to immediately end all contracts with Flock Safety, remove the cameras and end all sharing of data collected in Durango.

– Ben Peters, Durango