Flock Safety’s Falcon camera network has grown to an estimated 100,000-plus units deployed nationwide, according to reporting from Tech Times, even as a growing number of city governments have moved to cancel or decline renewal of their contracts with the company.
The report cites concerns raised by local officials over unauthorized access to city-collected license plate data by federal agencies through Flock’s opt-in national lookup network — the same data-sharing structure at issue in a pending California class action lawsuit (see our earlier coverage: California drivers file class action accusing Flock Safety of illegal data sharing).
The dynamic illustrates a tension in Flock’s growth: national scale is also what makes the network’s cross-agency search feature powerful for participating police departments, and controversial for cities that didn’t anticipate their local data being searchable by agencies outside their jurisdiction, including federal immigration enforcement.
Cancellations don’t necessarily mean the cameras come down immediately — contract terms, remaining lease periods, and hardware ownership (city-owned versus Flock-owned) all affect how quickly a city can actually exit an agreement once its council votes to do so.
For background on how the network’s opt-in national lookup system works technically, see How Flock Safety’s camera network works. For where cameras have been documented near you, browse the FlockScanner map.
Read the original reporting at Tech Times.