The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) focuses on privacy and liberty in the internet age and has taken aim at Flock and their ubiquitous cameras. In the first case, they saw, and reported on mission creep. This included a case directly contradicting Flock's statements that their technology "is not used to enforce traffic violations" even though a Georgia State Trooper ticketed a motorcyclist for holding a phone with the notation on the ticket that it was captured on a specific Flock camera.
Obviously, Flock do nothing to actually ensure their system does not do what they say it cannot do.
In a follow up a month later, EFF reports that due to lack of judicial supervision cops have expanded their [mis]use from specific violations to whatever the hell tickles their fancy. They suggest that lack of a warrant requirement has created a culture of off-label, unrestricted access to sensitive location information. PoPos' justification, provided by Flock, is to point out all the high-stakes crimes these cameras assist in, despite the facts proving the technology's more common use in very low-level investigations. Buford City Schools is using this technology for residency verification, which on the surface seems, well, lazy. BCS claims they are so good that they are subjected high levels of residency fraud but have failed to clearly explain how this happens and why Flock's technology is such a godsend. Lest you think the cesspool is restricted to Georgia, this is happening across the country. Governments, predominantly law enforcement agencies, are now doing searches as pre-employment background searches. Now that these eyes now have ears, the technology is being brought to bear on noise complaints, including our very own DeKalb County PD.
Across the board, the justifications range from cherry-picked examples to the downright silly, insulting the intelligence of any subjected to this blather. Like you. These are obfuscations deflecting attention from their end-around on due process. It may not be illegal (yet), maybe not even unethical, but it is clearly immoral, and this mission creep is only going to get creepier.
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