Amid a wave of privacy lawsuits and terminated contracts, Flock announced changes to its privacy and data retention policies Thursday in an attempt to quell concerns around mass surveillance and misuse by law enforcement.
The policy updates signal Flock is feeling the public pressure, but privacy advocates and lawyers told The Hill that leaving the company to regulate itself is not enough.
Michael Soyfer, an attorney with the Institute for Justice, called the changes “pretty much just window dressing.”
“I think it’s really just an effort, as the tide has turned on them, to quiet down all of the legislative and public opposition to their mass surveillance business model,” Soyfer told The Hill.
Flock offers a system of automated license plate readers, video cameras and audio detection devices that not only record license plate numbers, but specific details about a car to create what the company calls a “vehicle signature.”
These details include the make, model and color of the car along with unique features like bumper stickers, decals and accessories. The company does not use biometric data or facial recognition.
Flock argues a license plate is “just a start” in law enforcement investigations, and the additional information can be crucial for missing persons or criminal searches.
While communities acknowledge the technology’s use in emergencies, many feel the information collection amounts to a massive database and unwarranted mass surveillance of drivers on the road.
“A network of ALPR cameras has the ability to reveal where you have gone over a long period of time, and that, in turn, can reveal lots of things, intimate, private things about your life,” Andrew Crocker, surveillance litigation director at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said Thursday about automated license plate readers.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment