 “Flock Safety” has nothing to do with birds. It is a corporation that is a $3.5 billion-dollar pillar of the burgeoning surveillance industry. Flock’s particular surveillance niche is automated license plate recognition, and their cameras currently operate in more than 40 states, 4,000 cities, and 5,000 separate law enforcement agencies. The influence of this corporation is growing. In a recent Virginian-Pilot article, Peter Dujardin calls attention to a bill being considered by the state’s General Assembly. Put forth by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring, the legislation would authorize expanded reliance on Flock Safety cameras on state highways, representing a massive expansion of this surveillance technology (important given that Virginia has the nation’s third-largest state highway system). To her credit, Rep. Herring’s bill also includes important privacy protections. These include:
The Virginia bill is to be lauded for including these guardrails. Yet it still lacks what is arguably the most important safeguard – requiring a search warrant to access the database, as required by the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. So it remains the case that in places like Norfolk, where a staggering 172 Flock Safety cameras easily track the city’s 238,000 residents, authorities can still freely access the image database, no warrant or other valid justification required. We are fast approaching a tipping point between Fourth Amendment privacy rights and an unfettered technocratic surveillance state in the mold of Xi’s China – called a panopticon in which a citizen’s every move is monitored just in case. As we have written before, there is a proper place for surveillance systems. The targeted use of surveillance – with probable cause and a court-issued warrant – is necessary, productive, and constitutional. But what’s happening in Virginia and elsewhere is tantamount to general surveillance because of its scale and accessibility. Using license plate readers on a vast statewide highway network is casting an enormously wide net, and with that comes the risk of overreach. Good intentions mean little to someone whose life is torn apart when they are unjustly accused of a crime – all because authorities trusted a still-developing and largely unrestrained technology to make the call. The constitutional right to privacy inherently includes the right not to be constantly watched and continuously tracked, by default, and for no just reason. Comments are closed.
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