Flock Cameras Face Expanding Debate and Backlash

Communities are debating Flock automated license plate readers, weighing police claims that they help solve crimes and find missing people against concerns about privacy, data access and surveillance. Savannah police used the system to locate and arrest a juvenile suspect after a shooting that wounded his adult relative, while a Louisiana mother whose son was killed in an unsolved hit-and-run said license plate readers might have helped identify the driver. In League City, voters are considering a nonbinding measure on whether to continue the system, and the city says it will disable the cameras within 72 hours of certified results if voters oppose them. In Ohio, cameras have been vandalized, dismantled or stolen; police and Flock say the technology supports public safety and that damaging equipment puts communities at risk. In Akron, camera searches for federal immigration enforcement fueled concerns about uses beyond local purposes, while Flock cameras have also become a point of contention in Michigan school board races, where anonymous texts falsely associated candidates with supporting them.