Flock Safety sells automatic number-plate cameras that sit above roads across the US. As you drive past, the camera photographs your vehicle and sends the images to Flock’s servers, which log your number plate, colour, make and model, all stamped with the time and place. Local police can then search these records – and through Flock’s national network, so can thousands of agencies elsewhere. That reach has already caused scandals: one investigation found local officers running searches on behalf of immigration authorities, and even a case of police searching for a woman who’d had an abortion.

Now a hacker collective has physically pulled down a Flock camera, copied its contents and handed the files to journalists at 404 Media and WIRED. The findings cut through the company’s reassurances.

The headline numbers show the scale. In just 21 days of recoverable logs, this single camera photographed about 50,200 vehicles and generated roughly 1.6 million images – around 3,300 vehicles on a typical day. Each passing car triggered a burst of about 28 photos, sometimes over 100.

More striking is what the software looks for. Flock’s cameras don’t just track vehicles – the code explicitly detects people too, noting where they appear and how confident it is, a capability rarely mentioned in public debate. The system is also crude in places: its plate detector mistook bumper stickers, dealer frames and, in one case, an American flag patch on a motorcyclist’s bag for a number plate.

The breach also dents Flock’s security claims. The company had said its footage was protected by on-device encryption and that anyone breaking into a camera couldn’t reach the images. The hackers found an encryption key sitting on the device itself, which unlocked thousands of stored videos and stills. Flock’s response was that tampering with a camera is illegal and that the hackers should have reported the flaw through official channels.

A system marketed as a secure, plate-only crime-fighting tool turns out to watch people as well as cars, and feed a sprawling nationwide search network that lets police across the country trace anyone’s movements – the kind of mass tracking that can quietly chill protest, dissent and everyday freedom.

Source: https://www.wired.com/