Flock cameras are now in 6,000 US communities

A piece published in Route Fifty by City & State highlights eight key takeaways from their coverage of automated license plate readers like Flock cameras, which have prompted furious backlash from communities where they've been installed. "Public concerns stem from law enforcement’s ability to capture a vehicle’s license plate, make, model, color, bumper stickers, dents, exact location, and timestamp."

Some key points:

• Over 5,000 law enforcement agencies and 6,000 communities use Flock cameras, according to the company.
• The American Civil Liberties Union and other critics say the cameras pose a privacy risk because they "photograph every vehicle that passes, regardless of any suspicion of wrongdoing. All the data collected – license plate data, vehicle descriptions, location, and time – are stored, and a majority of that data is in a centralized, searchable national database that is accessible to law enforcement on demand without court approval."
• "The company estimates that roughly 10% of reported crimes in the U.S. are solved using Flock technology, amounting to more than 700,000 crimes each year."