Mass surveillance does not equal safety: Opinion 

Cleveland’s current contract with Flock Safety, a prevalent automatic license plate reader (ALPR) manufacturing company, is set to expire later this summer. The upcoming deadline has sparked both conversation and concern for the privacy risks this evolving technology poses, with advocates for the cameras claiming ALPRs are a vital tool to help law enforcement solve and prevent crimes.

It’s a case that would make Flock CEO Garrett Langley proud, because it buys into his manipulative and conniving notion that, at the expense of any personal privacy we have as Ohioans and Americans, Flock’s cameras somehow will help local law enforcement solve “every single crime that happens in America.”

ALPRs were initially developed in the 1970s, but their first use in the U.S. was by Border Patrol agents in 1998. Since then, their use by local law enforcement has increased steadily, but Flock’s founding in 2017 supercharged this alarming trend. 

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This very well-financed and marketed corporation has been able to sign contracts with more than 5,000 law enforcement agencies and other entities across the country, per recent estimates. Meanwhile, estimates place the number of active ALPRs at more than 100,000, though the actual figure certainly is higher. To put it bluntly, Flock has constructed a nationwide mass surveillance network of ALPRs (and more) in just about nine years. 

This is important to understand. We are not just talking about Cleveland’s 100 cameras operating in isolation and being used by Cleveland Police; they are connected to all of Flock’s ALPRs, because nationwide data-sharing is turned on by default in a Flock contract. That easily overlooked setting allows for any Flock customer to conduct a search of another Flock customer’s data. 

Advocates in Shaker Heights, for example, found that other Ohio agencies and out of state agencies had conducted 273 searches of Shaker Heights’ Flock camera data specifically for immigration enforcement and protest surveillance purposes. Months after these searches were conducted and only after sustained grassroots advocacy, the city of Shaker Heights disabled nationwide data-sharing. City officials in Dayton, meanwhile, decided to suspend use of their cameras entirely.

These searches are not just limited to immigration and protest tracking, either. In a particularly disturbing case in Texas, local law enforcement pulled dozens of agencies’ Flock data to search for and prosecute a woman who had an abortion. 

Flock spokespeople have said they do not control how the data is used by “end users” (i.e. law enforcement officers), but the fact remains that this shadowy technology is ripe for abuse by its users. 

We no longer are talking about just ALPRs, either. Late last year, Flock rolled out a new “Drone as First Responder” program, which Cleveland is actively using. These drones monitor far more than just vehicles (fleeing suspects, for example). 

Despite claims to the contrary, we at the ACLU of Ohio are here to tell you that Big Brother is in fact watching.

Furthermore, those who have nothing to hide—for example, the countless Ohio residents who have been abducted by ICE without a warrant—absolutely do have a reason to “object to cameras that record license plates and other information.” That is why the ACLU of Ohio is suing ICE, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) for the policy and practice of warrantless arrests that the omnipresence of Flock cameras likely have aided.

The ACLU of Ohio is calling on Mayor Bibb and Cleveland City Council not to renew its Flock contract. 

Elsewhere in the state, we are making the same demand in Athens, and down the Ohio River, we are urging Cincinnati City Council to implement an ordinance establishing community control over police surveillance (CCOPS). 

Constant mass surveillance does not equal safety.