ATLANTA—The fight against Flock Safety is getting louder and more sophisticated, even as the company’s AI-enabled cameras continue to spread across America.
Last week, here in Atlanta, the license-plate reader company barred the media from its annual conference with law-enforcement agencies. But that didn’t deter Benn Jordan, a cybersecurity researcher who has racked up millions of views on YouTube criticizing the company. He parked a gray van loaded with electronics nearby, pointed an antenna at the hotel and listened in. But the same bipartisan public anger that has risen up from towns and cities to stall data centers is now aimed at Flock’s spreading camera network . The metro area is also home to some of the company’s most dedicated and tech-savvy critics, including Jordan, the cybersecurity researcher and YouTuber. Outside the hotel hosting Flock’s conference, a scene out of a spy thriller unfolded. Sitting in his van, Jordan watched a wireless broadcast signal scroll down his laptop. It was an undecipherable crackle, and he suspected Flock had hung vinyl sheets on windows to defeat eavesdropping. A friend in the back of the van gathered hundreds of publicly available Wi-Fi IP addresses from the hotel. At the meeting, Jordan recounted experiments with Flock cameras he purchased legally. In one, he took control of a camera by repeatedly pressing a button. He also found a way to access a Flock security camera via the internet—and he broadcast its feed. His critics, including an army of people who drive around looking for Flock cameras, also don’t plan to stop.
Flock has 120,000 cameras in 49 states that capture 20 billion license plates a month—along with dents, bumper stickers and other identifying features.
The company says it is giving police a powerful tool to catch criminals. Flock’s hometown of Atlanta has more surveillance cameras per resident than any other city in the U.S., according to several studies. Standing in a playground under a Flock video camera, a few dozen feet from children on swings, he said, “I don’t really want my son to grow up in a world where he can be watched by anyone. Langley said Dunwoody’s police department is one of the most successful in the U.S., and that it gave Flock permission to use its cameras for sales demonstrations. Known as “wardrivers,” they use scanners to identify the radio signal given off by a camera and log it on DeFlock’s map as a potential site.
