So — maybe we’re using technology to give cops way too much power.

I’m sure that when author George Orwell wrote his novel 1984 and started lecturing the world about “Big Brother,” government surveillance and two-way telescreens that monitor citizens 24/7, there were those who thought he was crazy. I’m also sure most of those people haven’t lived long enough to witness Flock cameras.

What are Flock cameras, you ask?

Well, the Washington Post describes them as a “sprawling network of artificial-intelligence roadside cameras, which record passing license plates into a mappable database that officers can search while investigating crime.” Flock, the company, began with one man, its chief executive, Garrett Langley, a recent engineering graduate from Georgia Tech at the time, who installed his company’s first camera in Atlanta to protect his neighborhood from smash-and-grab robberies. Now, thousands of cities and police departments across the U.S. are using this technology.

So, what can go wrong, amirite?

Let’s start with Marci Bakely, whose ex-husband, Braselton Police Department Chief Michael Steffman, used Flock cameras to stalk her, tracking her every movement as she went to the grocery store, on a date, and whenever he suspected she was spending time at another man’s residence. He would even text her to let her know he knew exactly where she was, and she couldn’t figure out how he was doing it until she asked him and he fessed up to his misuse of the system. This led to his arrest last November, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigations, which said he was charged with stalking, harassment and license-plate-reader misuse. Steffman never saw the inside of a prison cell or even a trial date, because in April, he was found dead in his home from what officials said was a suicide.

Bakely and Steffman’s story is far from unique.

From the Post:

But bad actors have used this massive camera network as a powerful weapon for intimate surveillance. Authorities have charged or accused at least 50 law-enforcement officers of using license-plate readers for unauthorized purposes, including to stalk women without their knowledge or consent, a Post analysis of police and court records found.

In 26 of these cases, police investigators and prosecutors said the officers used the technology to spy on their wives, their girlfriends, their exes, their exes’ new partners or women they wanted to meet. In other cases, police or prosecutors have not specified the alleged surveillance targets. Flock’s system was used in 46 of the cases analyzed by the Post, while the other cases involved competing products.

Many of the plate-reader misuse cases were previously covered by local media outlets, and some were first compiled by the Institute for Justice, a civil liberties law firm in Arlington, Virginia.

The Post reviewed thousands of pages of court documents and internal police reports and conducted interviews with seven alleged victims, some of whom spoke publicly for the first time, to paint a comprehensive picture of the misuse of Flock and other license-plate readers by police officers around the country.

Source: What The Flock? Cops Use AI Camera System That Tracks License Plates To Stalk Their Exes And More