Jay Stanley of the ACLU writes:
The cloud Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPR or LPR) company Flock is building a dangerous nationwide mass-surveillance infrastructure, as we have been pointing out for several years now. The problem with mass surveillance is that it always expands beyond the uses for which it is initially justified — and sure enough, Flock’s system is undergoing insidious expansion across multiple dimensions. If your community adopts this technology, you need to know it’s doing more than just recording what car is driving where and at what time. It’s worth stepping back and looking at an overview of what’s going on.
The company’s surveillance data is being used by ICE.
First, as has received wide attention, this system is being used by ICE to help carry out the Trump Administration’s abusive removal program.
Flock sells their cloud-connected cameras to police departments and private customers across the nation, pulls the license plate readings they collect into their own servers, and allows police to do nationwide searches of the resulting database, giving even the smallest-town police chief access to an enormously powerful driver-surveillance tool.
Read more at the ACLU.