San Jose drivers sue city and police over Flock cameras

Three drivers in San Jose filed a class action suit against the city and police department over the deployment of nearly 500 cameras operated by Flock Safety.

Three drivers in San Jose, California, filed a class action suit against the city and police department over the deployment of nearly 500 cameras operated by Flock Safety, a controversial surveillance tech company that uses AI and dedicated cameras to catalogue vehicles’ movements.

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Organized by the Institute for Justice, a libertarian nonprofit law firm, the suit argues that the city’s use of the technology constitutes an unreasonable law enforcement search, in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Pictures collected from the cameras are added to giant searchable databases that use AI to help law enforcement easily identify when and where particular vehicles have traveled.

Flock offers a wide range of surveillance technologies to law enforcement agencies, governments, private companies and homeowners associations, but it is best known for its nationwide fleet of Automatic Licence Plate Cameras (ALPRs), which are mounted by prominent roads to record which vehicles go by and when.