Licence plate surveillance startup broke the law while trying to reduce crime
Reporting on company correspondence originally obtained by Forbes found that Flock had installed cameras on state infrastructure without the permits required by law. In South Carolina alone more than 200 unpermitted cameras were identified from spring 2022. Installing devices on state infrastructure without prior transport-department approval is a crime in Florida, Illinois and South Carolina. In July 2023 South Carolina's transport agency imposed a moratorium on new installations and ordered a safety and compliance review of every Flock camera in the state.
From the reporting
- The South Carolina moratorium is the clearest example on this desk of the permitting route working: a state agency stopped new installs and put the existing ones under review, without needing a privacy argument at all.
- In June 2022 an Illinois Department of Transportation official noted Flock's repeated, error-filled permit applications. A Flock representative responded that they would send "about 30 different police chiefs" to the office to get the process fast-tracked.
- Texas and Washington were also reported to have had permitting problems with the company.
- Originally reported by Forbes from company correspondence; this entry cites the Jalopnik account, which is the version verified for this report.
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