Cleveland Puts Flock Expansion On Hold Amid Backlash

With growing local and national backlash — both for general surveillance worries and specifically over reports the company’s data has been shared with ICE — Cleveland has temporarily tabled its proposed contract expansion with Flock and to possibly replace its contract with ShotSpotter.

The announcement comes as multiple reports detailed incidents where data from Flock was passed along to ICE agents despite no official arrangement or contract. There were at least 18 18 times throughout the state of Washington, according to a study from the University of Washington’s Center for Human Rights. And, more alarmingly, at least 4,000 lookups by local and state police “done either at the behest of the federal government or as an ‘informal’ favor to federal law enforcement, or with a potential immigration focus,” according to a report from 404 Media.

Dozens of cities are either scrapping their contracts with Flock or putting them on hold as they consider how the private security firm operates.

As has Cleveland.

City Council this week agreed with a recommendation from the Department of Public Safety to hold off on a decision to add more Flock license readers to its existing stock of 100. The city will also hold off on the possibility of using Flock to replace ShotSpotter cameras, devices trained to pick up and geolocate gunfire. (And potentially other sounds, activists allege.)

“We felt it prudent to at least pause and make sure we do our due diligence and make sure that none of these things are happening,” Public Safety Director Wayne Drummond told Cleveland.com last week.

So “that we vet things very thoroughly if we move foward with the Flock technologies as far as the gunshot detection,” he said.

There are at least 1,436 license plate reader cameras installed through Northern Ohio, and at least 100 in Cleveland’s limits, according to grassroots site DeFlock. There are three downtown; two in Ohio City; and one in the middle of Tremont—cameras that CPD can access to track and pinpoint cars via their license plate number.

But that’s about the extent of what the public is privy to. The recent Flock reports have sparked a wave of skepticism for a company that has installed its devices in some 6,000 communities throughout the U.S. in the past few years. Skepticism, Flock has said repeteadly, that is politically-motivated and completely unwarranted.

“No. Flock does not work with ICE,” a recent blog post on Flock’s site read. “Communities control federal data access. By default, sharing with federal agencies is disabled.”

Its cameras aren’t “mass surveillance” tools. Any misbehavior is a “small fraction of overall activity,” it claims.

As for rogue officers handing off license plate images or whereabouts: “Flock has no ability to override that decision.”

A scapegoat, in the minds of watchdogs.

“I think it’s clear they have no interest in policing the police,” Bryn Adams, an activist working with Flock No, told Scene on Tuesday. “Any why would they? They’re a software company; they’re just providing the software.”

Last November, Adams sent a letter with 275 signatures to members of City Hall and City Council, warning each about “the inevitable abuses” of Flock cameras that could happen here in Cleveland.

Records requests abounded: Which agencies got access to Flock data? If data’s been shared, where has it gone? Were any images sent to the “hotlist,” the national bank of wanted vehicles?

Adams only got back one reply: a confirmation it was read by Councilman Michael Polensek’s secretary. (Polensek, who’s head of Council’s Safety Committee, co-sponsored the Flock contract legislation.)

Roughly 80 new signatures have been added to the list of those wary of Cleveland’s expansion of Flock, or its continued use of its technology altogether, Adams said.

“The reason this surveillance technology feels so unstoppable is that none of us have a say in its deployment—so far,” Adams said. “I think it’s worth thinking about: Do I want to be tracked everywhere I go?”

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