- Flock Safety‘s OS Investigate AI tool provides police with 69 prewritten prompts that access plate scans, arrest records, and commercial databases containing Social Security numbers and relatives.
- 41 prompts require no special permission, and 14 need only a place, time, and behavioral pattern — no plate, name, or description.
- One prompt identifies a car’s “associates” by tracking vehicles that appear at the same cameras within two minutes, contradicting Flock Safety‘s claim that it does not track individuals.
- Activists have vandalized at least 33 Flock Safety cameras across 23 states, while lawmakers propose cutting federal funding for agencies using the technology.
Flock Safety, the surveillance company whose cameras log vehicles across more than 6,000 U.S. communities, has built an AI tool that can identify and follow drivers using nothing but their movement, according to a report from Wired.
The software, called OS Investigate, ships with 69 prewritten prompts that give police AI access to plate scans, arrest records, and commercial databases holding Social Security numbers and relatives.
Forty-one of the prompts require no special permission, and 14 need no plate, name, or description — just a place, a time, and a pattern of behavior.
One prompt finds a car’s “associates” by counting how often other vehicles appear at the same cameras within two minutes, flipping Flock Safety‘s promise that it doesn’t track people.
Former police officer Noel Pichardo told Wired: “I don’t know how anyone can argue against the idea that Flock literally tracks people.”
ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley said the gap between what the cameras can do and what the company is already doing leaves “very little space… like China.”
Activists have responded by vandalizing at least 33 Flock Safety cameras across 23 states, The Guardian reported.
The Institute for Justice found over two dozen cases of officers resigning or being arrested for allegedly using license-plate readers to stalk current or former partners, according to a report.
Rep. Thomas Massie has planned a bill that would withhold federal funding from agencies deploying the technology.
Flock Safety spokesperson Paris Lewbel called OS Investigate a separate product from the company’s license-plate readers, built to help investigators work across records their agencies already hold.
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