We can't put him back; surveillance is here to stay. It started in the 60s in London with the CCTV cameras around the city, and now we find surveillance cameras in doorbells!
In March of 2025, Cal Poly signed a contract with surveillance company Flock SafetyMustang Newsby Grace GillioMarch 3, 2026Every time a vehicle, bike or motorcycle enters or exits Cal Poly’s campus, it’s being tracked, often without the driver knowing.Its license plate is scanned and make and model noted, along with the exact date, time and location by a network of license plate readers monitored by the Cal Poly Police Department.The readers also record each car’s color, any present damage, bumper stickers and type of tire, allowing cameras to identify vehicles based on cosmetics rather than just a license plate.In March 2025, Cal Poly signed a contract with Flock safety, installing license plate readers and live video cameras at all campus vehicle entrances and exits, according to university spokesperson Matt Lazier. The decision, which was made with limited community input, incited condemnation from students and staff who are concerned about Flock’s potential to have a negative impact on the security of the Cal Poly community.[...]On Feb. 26, 2026, nearly a year after Cal Poly signed a contract with Flock Safety, CPPD decided to opt-in to a transparency portal. The cameras have detected 55,070 vehicles in the last 30 days, and CPPD has made 21 searches of the data, according to the portal. CPPD conducted 406 searches through Flock data from June 2025 to Feb. 3, 2026, according to Kevin Cushing, public records access officer.
What does that mean? It means that every single person entering a supposedly "open" center of learning, students, faculty, and visitors, is being indexed into a searchable database. As the Mustang News report notes, in just a 30-day period, these cameras detected over 55,000 vehicles.
Cal Poly had “general discussions” with ASI leadership before the Flock cameras were installed, according to Lazier. However, Mustang News found no formal Cal Poly announcement that Flock’s license plate recognition technology was to be utilized on campus.Some students and staff are left wondering where the line is drawn between safety and surveillance.Ryan Jenkins, philosophy professor and associate director of the Ethics + Emerging Sciences Group, says he is worried about the normalization of surveillance in general, especially the expectation that citizens have to “submit” to technology like Flock without knowledge or consent.“We’re told that it’s being done in our interest and for our benefit. I think that it’s fair to demand more than that in terms of an explanation,” Jenkins said. “I think it’s fair to understand how the data are used, who has access to them, what real kind of technical safeguards we have.”
But I don't think that having unfettered access to the databases is good. We cannot have open databases that can be accessed by any law enforcement agencies!
If we cannot put the genie back in the bottle, we must at least build a cage for it. We need a "gatekeeper"—strict legal guardrails and oversight—to ensure that "safety" doesn't become a permanent excuse for the end of privacy. There needs to be a gate keeper!
L A TimesBy Libor JanyMarch 3, 2026The Los Angeles Police Commission on Tuesday said it wants to know more about how data captured by the controversial license plate reader company Flock Safety is stored and shared.Commissioner Jeff Skobin requested a report from the department about its relationship with Flock, citing his conversations with city officials and residents, as well as news reporting detailing how federal authorities had repeatedly accessed Flock’s surveillance data as part of their nationwide deportation crackdown.Speaking during the civilian oversight panel’s meeting Tuesday, Skobin said that, for the sake of transparency, he wanted the department to explain how it was “so confident” that its data wasn’t being accessed by federal authorities as part of their immigration roundups.[...]The chief added that the department was aware of news reports suggesting that a “configuration error” by Flock had allowed out-of-state law enforcement agencies, including federal agents, to access license plate data from Ventura County in violation of state law.McDonnell said he ordered an internal audit to determine whether similar inadvertent sharing had occurred within the Los Angeles Police Department.
Ops... "Sorry about that boss!"
Plate-reading technology has been around for decades. But as the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown has ramped up, residents, privacy advocates and officials in some cities across the country have mounted campaigns urging their local governments to stop using the technology.Before the commission meeting, several dozen activists gathered outside LAPD headquarters in downtown L.A. to demand that the department cut ties with Flock.
"It won't happen again boss, promise! Cross my heart."
Ding Dong... ICE Calling!
Amazon's smart doorbell company is dropping a partnership with a firm known for its surveillance services, after facing scrutiny over its privacy practices.The decision cancels a deal announced in October between Amazon's Ring and Flock Safety, a firm that operates a network of cameras and license plate readers in the US used primarily by police and law enforcement agencies.The agreement would have allowed agencies working with Flock to retrieve video captured on Ring devices, if needed for investigations and allowed by customers.The decision not to move forward came days after a Ring advertisement aired during the Super Bowl sparked widespread backlash for being "creepy".
You know that speaks volumes on their mindset... that they didn't think people would think that it was "creepy" that Big Brother was staring out their front door!
In George Orwell book Nineteen Eighty-Four he never dreamed of computers and databases would lead us down the path to Big Brother and fascism.
Orwell’s 1984 warned of a world where Big Brother’s face was on every corner. He never imagined we would buy the cameras ourselves and mount them on our doors. We are reaching a tipping point where the "Search Party" for a lost dog becomes a "Search Party" for a political dissident or an immigrant neighbor. If we don't demand a "gatekeeper" now, we aren't just leaving the bottle open—we’re handing the genie the keys to our homes.
Just like in Nineteen Eighty-Four pictures of "Big Brother" are appearing all over Washington DC, on the Department of Justice, Department of Labor, and Department of Agriculture there are portraits of Big Brother on them.
No comments:
Post a Comment