Full transcript
Flock safety cameras continue to pop up
around town to ensure that car thieves
and violent criminals have almost no
chance to escape.
They've been helping catch suspects
quickly. We're just trying to keep you
safe. Flock cameras have revolutionized
local law enforcement. The system has
helped them arrest violent offenders and
recover stolen cars. [music]
they say is priceless.
Just helped them get a dangerous man off
the street.
They tracked his car down using Flock
cameras.
The cameras take a picture of every car
that drives by. The cameras are designed
to catch criminals, but they also create
a searchable database of every car that
passes. All day is just reading tags.
They're continuously recording.
It's just a tool to help us catch
criminals. We're going to catch
everyone. We have cameras everywhere in
that town. You can't get a breath of
fresh air in or out without us knowing.
Chrissana Elzer learned the power of
Flock first hand.
You were in town from 11:52 until 12:09,
exactly. Like I said, nothing gets in or
out of the town without us knowing. When
a Colorado police officer showed up at
her door holding Flock snapshots of her
truck. And here's when you left.
At 12:09, that's when you left town. To
get
No, to stop at Ridge Trail. Wait a
minute.
And take a package. Well, there's no
shushing. I don't need to be Yes, I need
you to know where this is. The first
thing he pulled out on the body cam is
that Flock picture, the clear photograph
of your car.
But here's your vehicle in the
neighborhood many, many times,
apparently casing houses cuz you just
can't drive through for work or visit
other businesses. You can only be casing
houses. It is her. It is 100%. It is
locked in. There is zero doubt. I
wouldn't have come here unless I was
100% sure. 100%. It is certain. It is on
video. You're obviously welcome to go to
court.
Chrissana was charged with stealing a
package, but it wasn't her. The porch
pirate was somebody else.
Multiple times you tried to show him
your video evidence, he didn't want to
[music] see it.
Oh, even when I called him back, he
said, "That's not my job." You looked at
the time of a crime, you saw my vehicle
entering in the Flock camera.
No, no, what I did was I did an
investigation. You called my wife a
liar, you threatened to arrest us back.
I have video evidence. I don't know what
you want me to say. The charges were
dropped after Crisanna spent weeks
[music] trying to get the police chief
to look at her evidence. Time-stamped
video from her truck and a neighbor's
doorbell camera showing she wasn't at
the scene of the crime.
What does it say about where we are that
you feel you have to have more cameras
than the police have in order to make
sure you can prove yourself innocent?
It sounds like it flipped the script to
you're guilty until you prove yourself
innocent. Without a Flock camera, that
detective would not have been at her
door. By his own admission, he pulled
out the Flock picture of her car. Do you
want to apologize to Crisanna Elzer for
what happened to her?
For
I I don't think that I have to apologize
for He wasn't charged with a crime, he
wasn't I mean, other than being
reprimanded for his attitude. Sure. No,
but I would tell you that like, should I
apologize for somebody misusing a tool?
I don't think so. Flock Safety Chief
Communications Officer Josh Thomas.
Who's watching the watchers in these
cases? Well, uh the city council, the
city owns the data, so city council
would have the appropriate
responsibility in that case. Our our
point of view has always been that um it
is not Flock's job to police the way
police do their work. Flock license
plate readers don't just scan tags
looking for a stolen cars or vehicles on
a hot list. The cameras take a photo of
every car that passes, stamped with the
precise time and location. The more
cameras you pass, the clearer the
picture of your movements. All of that
data is saved in a database for 30 days,
shared with connected police departments
allowing the government to go back in
time to see where your car was and when.
No warrant required whether you're
suspected of a crime or not. Why not
just do hot list alerts? It's because
the investigative value here is is
immense. Otherwise, you're going back to
the old way of policing which is an
eyewitness saw something. They're going
to call in and report it and a police
officer has to go stop every yellow Jeep
that looked like that or every person
who's described a certain way. Instead
with an LPR, you can actually find the
objective data you need. It's the new
way of policing which is precise.
Instead of dragnet, it actually becomes
precision policing. So I would challenge
back that same notion and say hot
listing is not the way to go. Because
police departments not only save
typically 30 days of every vehicle that
passes every one of their cameras,
investigators also have access to the
same data from every department or
private business that shares cameras
with them. [music] We're well over a
thousand cameras that we have access to
right now. Flock says 6,000 local
governments use its cameras many sharing
data with each other. Flock becomes more
powerful, not just more profitable, the
more agencies who are part of the
network. That's their entire business
model. That's what why they're worth
seven and a half billion dollars. The
whole idea is crowdsourcing, right?
Yes, but it's crowdsourcing with
agencies rather than the crowd and the
crowd is actually being surveilled by
the agencies who are then crowdsourcing
with each other. Yeah, the crowd's the
product. We are the product. Jason Huynh
Yar lives in Dunwoody, Georgia. The
Atlanta suburb was an early Flock
customer with cameras all over town.
Dunwoody shares with
over a thousand external agencies all of
our data. So he filed records requests
with the city for Flock's audit logs.
Despite 30 records requests, you don't
know who's watching you and your family
in Dunwoody in other agencies and what
they're looking for. Correct. Every time
somebody logs in and tries to perform a
search in Flock, it is cataloged. And
that's there in an audit log that's
immutable. So, you there's public
accountability on this. They gave you an
estimate of over a half million dollars
for you as a resident of Dunwoody to see
records of the system they're using to
surveil you. Yes. Yes. Just to see
just to see who is looking at our data.
Who monitors the camera footage? Hunyadi
went to city council with the limited
Flock audit records Dunwoody gave him.
And there's two agencies that are on
there that are literally labeled delete
and do not use. Nobody from Flock Safety
is accessing or monitoring your footage.
Once again, I have evidence of Flock
employees looking at parks, schools,
playgrounds. The audit logs also showed
Flock executives watching private
cameras inside the city's Jewish
Community Center, which the mayor
confirmed. Members of the Flock sales
team
were using it as a demonstration. Why
didn't Flock find those vulnerabilities?
Why did it take a safety sergeant?
We actually can't talk about the JCC
by name.
So, we can talk about something else
there. Well, why can't you talk about
the JCC? Because we work with their team
and we we're not going to
A Flock PR person stopped our interview
twice when we tried to ask about Flock
employees viewing cameras inside the
Jewish Community Center. Did the people
in those videos get permission to be
part of a demo? We're not going to
answer questions about JCC. Not answer
questions about JCC.
But any partnership I have to ask the
question. However, you guys want to
answer it. If you want to say you can't
answer it, you can't answer it. That's
fine. But I have to ask the question. I
can't It's not a PR video. This isn't
like a promotional video. It's a It's a
I mean, this is
it's pretty clear what I was It's not a
PR video. We're good though. I think
that people from the community are
raising appropriate concerns about who
has access to what cameras. I I it's
appropriate to ask those questions. I
think it's appropriate for us to also
say that we had permission from the
cities to demonstrate how these cameras
work. I'm here to express my support for
Flock. At Dunwoody City Council, one
resident spoke up in favor of renewing
the Flock contract. I believe they're
practical and effective tool to help
keep our neighborhood safe. Did you know
that family members of Flock employees
were going to city council meetings
speaking positively about the product
without disclosing that their family
member makes their living off of Flock?
I did not know that, no. The speaker did
not disclose that his son works for
Flock as the senior director of growth.
These cameras assist law enforcement.
Should employees family members disclose
that their son makes their entire living
off of Flock when speaking positively to
a government body about a contract
that's pending with your company?
I think that's a fair request. Dunwoody
ultimately voted to renew its Flock
contract, but with new restrictions on
the company. So, we will no longer be a
demonstration location for Flock. That
keeps them out of places they should not
be. You told me you weren't in the town
of Dunmar. I have you roughly roughly 20
times this month alone. Kristina Elzer
lives just yards from the same Flock
camera used to falsely accuse her of a
crime. It's hard to drive that way and
then look up and see it pointed right at
you and and wondering, did you put my
license plate in a system and now it's
tinging at you every time [music] it
reads it and now you're just kind of
watching me or taking note because
you ended up being embarrassed you were
wrong. Every technology comes with a
cost. [music] In your view, the benefits
outweigh those costs. There's no
question about it. I think that crime is
too easy to go unsolved today.
Horrible violent crimes.
And I think that when cities remove
technology, [music] they remove tools
from the ability to solve those crimes,
it actually has a
uh
a negative cycle that impacts those
cities. [music] Watching everyone to
find the criminals among us, but who is
watching the watchers?
[music]