Flock is tightening its rules in response to a growing surveillance backlash

The story

technologyreview.com: The police-tech giant Flock is announcing today that it will change officers’ access to its nationwide network of license plate readers, in an apparent effort to quell a growing backlash and win back contracts lost amid concerns about mass surveillance and police abuse. Several changes aim directly at a problem that has made recent headlines: officers abusing Flock’s technology to stalk and harass current or former romantic partners. Flock’s 120,000 cameras form a nationwide network that police departments can use, giving officers access to an enormous pool of searchable location data. A recent Washington Post investigation found 46 cases in which officers were accused of using Flock s cameras for unauthorized purposes like stalking. To combat that, the company will start requiring officers to enter a criminal case number before conducting a search. The system was launched as an option last year but is now required. It’s meant to verify that each search has a legitimate purpose. This is a baseline standard that civil liberties groups have asked for, but officers have found ways around similar safeguards. The ACLU recently found that when Flock required officers to enter a reason for a search, some used generic terms like “investigation” or mocked the prompt entirely; at one Oregon department, officers entered “hehehe” 20 times . Because Flock won’t verify case numbers, officers could circumvent the new safeguard just as easily. But Flock is now expanding an automatic auditing system that is supposed to catch those who try that, the firm announced today The feature analyzes officer search activity and flags to administrators anyone with suspicious searches. This was also introduced as an option last year but is now mandatory. Flock has not shared specifics on how accurate the automatic auditing tool is, nor opened it up to independent evaluators. Beyond trying to prevent officer abuse, Flock is making changes meant to address broader backlash about how much data its