![]() "I think of it as the Ring doorbell of LPR," Sergeant JT Maultsby from the Raleigh Police Department wrote in one July 2019 email to colleagues. The emails also show how Flock works closely with police to try and generate positive media coverage, improve their PR strategy, and ultimately "get your jurisdiction activated" and "bring more private cameras into the area." In some cases Flock has helped write press releases for agencies, the emails show. In 2019, the Los Angeles Times reported how members of a community in Sherman Oaks purchased the cameras to keep tabs on which cars are driving in and out of their own area.Įmails obtained by Motherboard show police-purchased Flock cameras may be installed outside a Burger King, a Lowes, or other businesses, and that controversial Fusion Centers, which hoover in data from various federal, state, and local sources to monitor large areas of the country at once, have also discussed gaining access to the footage. Previous coverage has focused on how residents in individual neighborhoods have banded together to purchase Flock cameras for their own use. The administrator of the neighborhood's camera network can make the data Flock captures available to, say, the police, the home owner association's board, or the individual members of an entire neighborhood. In the promotional video, the company claims to be able to detect people, cars, animals, and bicycles, and says it is "collecting evidence" that helps police solve 4 to 5 crimes per hour. Over 500 police departments in more than 1,000 cities have access to Flock cameras, according to marketing material. The TALON network offers up to 500 million scans of vehicles a month, according to one email obtained by Motherboard. TALON gives police access to a nationwide network of cameras that have been installed by law enforcement agencies around the country. Hundreds of pages of internal police emails from nearly 20 police departments around the country obtained using public records requests by Motherboard show how Flock has slowly expanded its network, helped law enforcement agencies gain access to it, and has rolled out TALON with very little fanfare. Through a program called TALON, this little-known company is allowing police officers to track cars-and by extension, specific people-outside of their own jurisdictions. Communities have created "virtual gates" around their neighborhoods, with cameras capturing each vehicle driving in and out of the area. ![]() The cameras, which are sold to law enforcement, homeowners associations, and businesses, can automatically record when a "non-resident" vehicle drives into a community, and alert police to cars on a hotlist.
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