Finding 01
The camera is only where it starts. A car drives by. A person walks by. A passenger looks out a window. Someone walks into a café. The camera captures what happens in front of it. From there, that information can be stored, searched, compared, shared, downloaded, and used to create new information.
Finding 02
The system can search for cars, people, and connections between people, time, and place. Flock is not just a license-plate lookup. Its tools can search video for people using visible details such as clothing, search across different places and times, and bring information about people and vehicles together. One camera sees one moment. The system can put many moments together.
Finding 03
The cameras your city leases are not the whole network. Police can be given access to cameras owned by businesses, HOAs, campuses, and other private owners. A city can lease a limited number of cameras while its officers may be able to search information from many more cameras than the city itself pays for.
Finding 04
The city owns the photo, video, and audio input. Flock owns what the system creates. Flock’s current contract separates Customer Data from Flock Property. Customer Data includes material the customer provides, including photo, video, and audio input. Flock Property includes things the system creates, such as analyses, reports, models, intermediate and final outputs, and other results. So the city owning its data does not mean the city owns everything Flock makes from it.
Finding 05
Deleting the city’s data after so many days does not mean everything is gone after the time expires. The rule can delete the city data. However information can be printed, downloaded, or kept somewhere else. Flock’s contract says reports, analyses, results, models, and everything its system creates is Flock data not the city’s original data. The original information may disappear but Flock data remains available on the network.
Finding 06
Turning off nationwide sharing does not control the information Flock owns. Oklahoma City can turn off its automatic nationwide sharing setting. That stops that sharing by the city. But Flock’s contract says Flock owns the things its system creates. Changing the city’s sharing setting does not turn Flock’s property into city property or give the city control over it.
Finding 07
“Authorized users only” doesn’t tell you anything useful until you know who can be authorized and what they can see. Flock is used by police, but it also sells cameras and services to private customers such as businesses and HOAs. Private cameras can be shared with police, and different users can have access to different information. “Authorized” only means someone was given permission. It does not tell you who that person is, who gave permission, or what that permission lets them see.
Finding 08
Being allowed into the system does not mean every search you make is allowed. The documented misuse cases involved people who had legitimate access to law-enforcement systems. The problem was what they allegedly did with that access. Permission to use Flock does not prove that every search a user makes has a legitimate law-enforcement purpose.
Finding 09
Recording a reason does not prove the reason is true. Flock can require a user to type a reason before searching. But the person making the search is also the person supplying the reason. Real audit records have included vague, generic, and meaningless explanations. A box asking “why?” is not the same as somebody checking whether the answer is true.
Finding 10
An audit records what happened. It does not prevent it from happening. Flock keeps records of searches so they can be reviewed later. That can expose misuse and help hold someone accountable. But by then, the person has already seen the information. An audit can catch misuse afterward. It cannot make the information private again.
Finding 11
The crimes used to sell the system do not define what it is actually used for. Flock is often introduced with stolen cars, violent crime, missing people, and other serious cases. Actual search records show the system has also been used for school residency checks, background checks, noise complaints, political demonstrations, and searches involving ethnicity. What a system is sold for and what people actually use it for are not the same thing.
Finding 12
A city can make a rule and still not control what the system actually does. Mountain View believed it had limited sharing, but the system did not fully match what the city thought it had authorized. Cambridge removed and deactivated its cameras, but an unfinished Flock work order later resulted in two more cameras being installed without the city’s knowledge. Making the decision and making the system obey the decision are two different things.