Oopsie-Daisy or Deliberate Deceit?
Here’s the thing. Flock Safety, for those who’ve managed to avoid the ever-creeping tendrils of surveillance tech, sells these automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras to police departments and HOAs all across the country. They’re supposed to be a crime-fighting tool, right? Catching bad guys, finding stolen cars, all that good stuff. And they collect a lot of data. Like, a terrifying amount.
But here’s where it gets really, spectacularly messy. Someone – a guy named Jack Kudra, who runs this website called HaveIBeenFlocked.com (great name, honestly) – started doing what any good citizen journalist would do. He filed public records requests with police departments to get data on where and how these cameras were being used. You know, transparency. Basic stuff. And what he found was… a dumpster fire.
See, Flock’s software, which is supposedly all about protecting privacy and redacting sensitive info before police release it, apparently sucks at its job. Or someone just didn’t care. Because when the police released these public records files, millions of surveillance targets – actual individuals, not just license plates – were just… there. Unmasked. Their identities, their movements, all laid bare. This wasn’t a small leak. This was big. Really big.
The “Redaction Error” That Wasn’t Really an Error?
So, what happened? From what I can tell, Flock’s software, when it’s supposed to redact personally identifiable information from these public records, just kind of… didn’t. Or it did a really, really crappy job. We’re talking about records that were supposed to be anonymized before they hit the public domain. And they weren’t.
And HaveIBeenFlocked.com? Kudra’s site just aggregated these publicly available (but poorly redacted) records. He basically built a searchable database so you, the average Joe, could see if your data had been compromised. He wasn’t hacking anything. He wasn’t stealing anything. He was just taking information that was already out there because of Flock’s (or the police’s) screw-up, and making it accessible to the people who actually have a right to know. Which, I mean, seems like a pretty important public service, if you ask me.
So, Who’s the Real Villain Here?
Now, you’d think Flock Safety, after being caught with their pants down on a massive privacy breach, would be falling all over themselves to apologize, fix the problem, and maybe offer some kind of explanation for how they managed to expose millions of people. Right? You’d think they’d be thanking Kudra for pointing out their colossal failure.
Nope.
Instead, Flock Safety is going after HaveIBeenFlocked.com. They’re suing the guy who exposed their negligence. They’re basically trying to shoot the messenger. It’s a classic move, honestly. When you screw up big time, just attack the person who made you look bad. It’s infuriating. It’s a cynical play that tells you everything you need to know about where their priorities actually lie. It’s not about your privacy; it’s about controlling the narrative and protecting their bottom line.
“It’s a chilling reminder: when companies make a ‘mistake’ that compromises millions of people’s privacy, they don’t apologize. They sue the person who dared to show the world what they did.”
A Pattern of ‘Accidents’ and Power Plays
This isn’t just about one “redaction error,” folks. This is about a systemic problem. It’s about tech companies pushing surveillance tools into our communities, promising safety and efficiency, but consistently failing on the privacy front. And then, when those failures come to light, they don’t take responsibility. They circle the wagons. They lawyer up.
Think about it: millions of people. Not just a few thousand. Millions. That’s a huge chunk of the population. And for all we know, this “error” could just be the tip of the iceberg. How much other poorly redacted, sensitive data is floating around out there, just waiting for someone to aggregate it? It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? It makes you wonder who cares about your data, truly.
And the police, who are supposedly custodians of this data, who are supposed to be protecting our rights? They’re the ones releasing this unmasked information in the first place, even if it’s due to a faulty piece of software. It just shows a stunning lack of diligence, a casual disregard for the implications of collecting and storing this kind of sensitive data on everyday citizens.
What This Actually Means
Look, if you’re driving a car in most parts of the country these days, you’re probably being tracked by ALPRs. That’s just a fact. But what this Flock screw-up shows is that the data they’re collecting isn’t just an abstract data point. It’s tied to you. And that data, supposedly protected, can be exposed at any time, often by the very entities promising to keep it safe.
It means that the “privacy by design” claims made by these companies are often just marketing fluff. It means that the public records process, designed for transparency, can inadvertently become a tool for massive privacy breaches when combined with sloppy tech and bureaucratic indifference.
So, what’s the takeaway? Don’t trust them. Not the tech companies, not the police departments relying on their black-box algorithms. Assume your privacy is already gone. Because when “mistakes” like this happen, and the response is to attack the person exposing the truth, it pretty much tells you all you need to know about where we stand. It’s a wild west out there, and our data is the tumbleweed. And honestly, it’s not gonna get better anytime soon, is it? We’re basically just waiting for the next “error.”
