The views and opinions expressed in this editorial article are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of Salina Post or Eagle Media. The editorial is intended to stimulate critical thinking and debate on issues of public interest and should be read with an open mind. Readers are encouraged to consider multiple sources of information and to form their own informed opinions.
By: EDY CHEREMOND
Between November 22 and November 29, 2022 the city of Salina signed a 3 year $169,950 contract with Flock Group inc/Flock Safety for the installation of 22 Automatic licence Plate Readers (ALPR), also referred to colloquially as Flock Cameras. This contract is set to end on December 31, 2025. According to Flock their cameras can “Capture more detail with Vehicle FingerprintR and Flock FreeFormTM. Turn images into actionable evidence-no plate required”. This suggests that the cameras are more than just ALPRs, but can capture other details of your car such as color, make, model, bumper stickers, roof rack, dents and more.
This article will be focused on Flock Safety however, Salina is also doing business with Leonardo, a competitor of Flock. The privacy issues mentioned in this article will also apply to the Leonardo surveillance system.
Why Should you care?
Privacy concerns
Unlike regular traffic cameras which take a picture when an infraction is committed. Flock Cameras capture details about every single vehicle that appears in their line of sight, whether an infraction has been committed or not. Combine this with a subscription to their “Flock Safety Platform” which centralizes all the information and makes it searchable and you have a 24/7 surveillance system. According to Flock, the data is only stored for 30 days before it is permanently deleted, however, they will comply with local laws and regulations that allow for a different retention period.
With enough cameras, this system can allow Law enforcement officers (LEO) from Salina and beyond (if Salina chooses to share its data) to track the whereabouts of any vehicle driving in Salina. With enough cameras they will be able to determine where you work, where your kids go to school, which doctor you visit, which church you attend, which protest you attend, who you associate with, who you support politically and more. Not only will they be able to track your location, they will know exactly when you do all these things which means they can determine your habits and patterns of behavior. Currently, with just 22 Flock cameras they can’t easily get to that level of detail, however, in December 2024 they were aiming to get 21 Leonardo ELSAG cameras which suggest they are willing to increase the number of surveillance cameras. As of this writing, Salina LEOs (and possibly other LEOs) are able to track the whereabouts of anyone driving in Salina for any reason, whether that person has committed a crime or not. No warrant, probable cause or reasonable suspicion necessary. This is not theoretical, there is already evidence of abuse. A Police Lieutenant in Kechi, Kansas was arrested in 2022 for stalking his wife using the Flock surveillance system. A Police Chief from Sedgwick, Kansas resigned in 2023 after admitting to using the Flock surveillance system to stalk his ex-girlfriend. Yet another police chief has been arrested and charged with using the LPR camera of his department to stalk and harass multiple individuals.
Federal Agencies can access Flock data even if they themselves do not have an account because LEOs can always perform the search on their behalf. This means that ICE can access Flock data even in states like Illinois who explicitly forbids sharing data for the purpose of immigration enforcement. When performing searches in the Flock surveillance system, LEOs often use vague terms like “investigation”, “stolen”, “other” and “suspicious vehicle”. The Flock surveillance system cannot verify that a search is being performed for a legitimate law
enforcement reason. Any reason given will allow access to the data.This combined with the lack of a warrant is what has allowed the abuses mentioned above.
Many Police departments, such as the Salina PD, are attempting to mitigate abuse by requiring LEOs to enter “a case number” or if not applicable a “type of crime” and “location”. Data such as “reasons” for the search and the “operator” who performed the search are tracked and could be audited by Salina PD. This raises several questions: 1) How will the audit be performed, will it check all the searches performed or just a subset? If a subset, what is the protocol for choosing how big it should be and how likely is it to catch abuse? 2) Will the auditor really be able to know if a search was legitimate? Will they be able to tell that a LEO was really looking for a suspicious vehicle? By the time the audit happens your rights have already been violated so if we choose to allow this warrantless surveillance system it’s really important to determine how effective a deterrent the threat of an audit is. There is no doubt that many police departments including Salina PD want to have the Flock surveillance system because they believe it will help them solve crime but, is mass surveillance and relinquishing our right to privacy the best way to create a safe city? Are we as a community willing to let the government track our every move throughout the city, whether we’ve committed a crime or not?
If a government agency wishes to implement such a surveillance system they should seek explicit consent from their constituents and at the bare minimum they should be transparent about how they use that system. Currently the SPD is not willing to be transparent about their use of the surveillance system. A Public Records Request for the activities log and the audits of those logs has been denied.
Currently Flock Safety says that their system does not use facial recognition or biometrics to identify and track people however, section 19 of their patent suggests their system could be used in identifying gender, race, height, weight and even the type of clothing someone is wearing. Recent investigation has found that they are actively working on training their model to identify people. Flock is sending our sensitive data to workers overseas tasked with identifying people, objects, and even sounds as a way to train Flock’s Safety AI.
For those not yet convinced that this is an issue I would point you to the history of our Federal Government. The US government has admitted to literally tracking hundreds of civil rights activists, journalists, antiwar activists and many other individuals and groups it deemed too radical. The Federal Government will undoubtedly have access to the Flock surveillance system, whether that’s through having a Flock account or compelling local officials to share the data with them. If you aim to participate in politics or public life you should be concerned.
Data Breaches
It is now clear that Flock security protocols leave much to be desired, so it really is a matter of time before their servers are breached if they haven’t been already. More tech savvy companies like Google and Apple have had their share of breaches. The hackers won’t need to hack Flock itself, they can hack one of the many thousands of police departments with a flock subscription. Login information including passwords of at least 35 flock customers have already been hacked - and made available for sale on a Russian language cybercrime forum. Are we as a community willing to have data about our whereabouts stored on a big corporation’s private server when they have failed to require basic security procedures like two-factor authentication to access their surveillance system? Should we really trust this company when recent evidence suggests that the cameras transferring the data are not very secure?
Business Model
The ability for Flock to make money depends on the company's ability to collect a large amount of data that is easily shareable and searchable. The more data it has the more useful its surveillance system will be to its customers. The more useful the surveillance system the more money the company will make. This means that as time goes on Flock will seek to increase the amount and type of data it collects. If we've learned anything from social media companies it's that they will always seek more data. As long as there is money to be made there is no point at which they will say, "that's enough".
Legal issues
The Institute for Justice (IJ), a Non-Profit law firm focused on violations of constitutional rights filed a Lawsuit in 2024 challenging the use of Flock Cameras in Norfolk, Virginia. They argue the Flock surveillance system violates the fourth amendment which protects us against unreasonable search and seizure. According to IJ, the supreme court has ruled that prolonged tracking of cellphone location data is considered a search and at least one federal court has found that using a helicopter to monitor a city is a search. This means that in both cases the police would need a warrant, so why would the Flock surveillance system which tracks the whereabouts of mostly innocent people be an exception?
On November 17, 2025 the Northern California ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed a lawsuit against the city of San Jose,California, alleging that by blanketing the city with 500 Flock cameras, the city is violating resident’s constitutional rights to privacy and protection against unreasonable search. A judge in Washington recently ruled that Flock data are subject to the public records act under state law, see article here. Which means anyone that files a public request and has the money to pay for it can now access the data. This is not the case in Kansas, as of January 1, 2023 the Kansas legislature passed a law essentially making it so that the disclosure of “Records of a public agency that contain captured license plate data or that pertain to the location of an automated license plate recognition system” is not required. SPD is using this law to deny a request made for both the activity logs and audits of the activity logs even though they have discretionary power to release that information with appropriate redactions if they so choose.
Conclusion
The 22 Flock cameras currently installed throughout the streets of Salina allow our whereabouts, habits and patterns to be tracked 24/7 - without a warrant, reasonable suspicion or probable cause. If this is not “Big Brother” style surveillance then, what is? Make no mistake this is just the beginning, as people get accustomed to mass surveillance it is a matter of time before facial recognition or other biometric systems become implemented in our streets in the name of safety. Why else would Flock be actively training their AI on biometrics? Folks, big tech companies are not your friend, their aim is to make money full stop. If that means they track your every move then that’s what they will do. Big Brother is coming, government agencies with the help of private companies like Flock are watching your every move, and many departments like the SPD are not willing to be transparent about how they use this warrantless surveillance system. We know from history that the US government is perfectly willing to track groups and individuals like civil rights activists it deems too radical. So the question for Salina residents is this: Are you willing to submit to warrantless government surveillance and the whims of big tech corporations? If you are against Big Brother style surveillance email the city commission or attend one of their meetings and let them know they should cancel any contract with Flock Safety and Leonardo. Let them know that in the future you want the opportunity to give your consent for any such surveillance system being implemented in your city.
Edy Cheremond,
Salina, KS
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