For those unfamiliar, Flock Safety is a private company that operates a nationwide network of Automated License Plate Readers, or ALPRs. According to the company’s own patent, these systems use AI to identify and classify objects, recording information such as license plates, vehicle characteristics, and even the characteristics of people captured on camera. That information is then stored in a database and made available to law enforcement agencies across the country without a warrant. These systems have helped recover stolen vehicles and missing people.

The question is not whether they have benefits, but whether those benefits justify creating a searchable database documenting the movements of millions of innocent people. Flock supporters often make three arguments: if you’re innocent, you have nothing to fear; your data is being collected anyway; and there is no expectation of privacy in public. I personally do not believe these arguments fully address the constitutional issues involved.

In Carpenter v. United States, the Supreme Court held that police generally need a warrant to obtain historical cell-site location information because prolonged location tracking reveals what Chief Justice Roberts called "the privacies of life." In United States v. Jones, several Justices explained that long-term monitoring of a person's public movements can violate the Fourth Amendment because it reveals the "mosaic" of that person's life. Neither case directly addresses Flock cameras, but both recognize that modern technology can transform public observations into something far more intrusive when aggregated over time.

Beyond the constitutional questions, these systems have also been misused. Officers have improperly searched the database for personal reasons, and independent reporting has documented how security flaws allowed unauthorized people to collect footage and data from Flock cameras overlooking pools, parks, and other public gathering places. This, coupled with innocent people getting arrested, detained, or having guns drawn on them due to technical errors in how Flock marks cars, means our citizens are being put in harm's way. No technology is immune from abuse, which is exactly why oversight matters.

Ennis already has one more camera than we need, and I recommend that our city join the growing list of cities that ban these devices within our city limits. If a total ban or removal is not an option, self-imposed restrictions should be the next logical solution. Things like, limiting data retention to hours or days, not weeks or a month or more, limiting data sharing by prohibiting local law enforcement from providing access to any other government entity unless they have a warrant for a felony crime that is recognized under local/state law, limiting usage to felony investigations, missing persons cases, identifying unregistered/uninsured vehicles, and certain limited non-enforcement scenarios, like electronic toll collection, requiring annual usage reporting and placing limits on the availability of ALPR data via open records requests so it cannot be used for troublesome purposes like stalking or embarrassing a person for entertainment value. Technology like this is often accepted one step at a time, one camera at a time, and before we realize it, our beautiful city will be overrun with them.

Doris Polk

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