I want to start a discussion about Flock cameras in Santa Monica. A lot of new information has come to light about the lack of security features of these cameras, and how easy it is for anyone with access to a web browser to actively browse, live stream and even delete information and footage collected by these cameras. The Santa Monica Police Department currently has contracts with Flock and pay an annual subscription to the company for at least 50 cameras. Please inform yourself on these cameras to come to your own conclusions.
Yes, an argument can be made about the greater good of these cameras, or how if you do nothing wrong you have nothing to hide. While maybe true, I start to lose faith in those arguments with how publicly available this knowledge is. If a bad actor has a live feed of where you are and where you go at a given time on a given day of the week, suddenly a robbery or assault becomes trivial.
Mass Surveillance capitalism is real.
https://www.404media.co/
"Flock left at least 60 of its people-tracking Condor PTZ cameras live streaming and exposed to the open internet."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo
A tale as old as 20 years ago. They've been using private companies to do the data collection and tool building for a long while to get around the illegality of collecting data directly about people in this country.
Look at how San Francisco is supposedly “cracking down on crime.” It’s the same playbook every time: mass camera deployment marketed as safety, thin results in practice, and a quiet expansion of surveillance infrastructure that mostly benefits vendors and data pipelines.
This isn’t about public safety so much as turning Silicon Valley–style data mining into civic infrastructure. Big procurement contracts, perpetual subscriptions, and ever-expanding behavioral datasets get justified as crime prevention, while accountability and effectiveness remain vague.
Meanwhile, the tech itself is porous, easy to evade, and mostly reactive. It doesn’t prevent crime so much as normalize broad monitoring of everyone else. That’s not policing reform. It’s surveillance creep dressed up as security.
I’ll see you and raise you all the data acquisition Waymo(Google/Alphabet) harvests.
Let’s get them the fuck out. Because why are they even being allowed here in the first place. Surely city council knows and has approved them. So wtf
https://youtu.be/uB0gr7Fh6lY?si=PnXrE7zzEBWfKAjK
I wasn't that familiar with Flock before this post, but as someone who works in tech & cares a lot about civil liberties, it got me curious. Here's my take on why the situation isn't as dire as it sounds for Santa Monica.
I lot of the claims here reference the Benn Jordan/Jon Gaines video. While it’s good to stay informed, I think some of the "the sky is falling" rhetoric might be overblown when you look at how these systems actually function in a city like Santa Monica.
"Remote Hacking" vs. Physical Access The most dramatic part of that video (the 30-second hack) requires physical access to the camera. Someone has to walk up to the camera, use a ladder or a "stick," and manually interact with the hardware to trigger a local hotspot. This isn't something a "bad actor in a basement" can do to the whole fleet. It’s a localized, high-risk physical act that would be caught on the very camera they are trying to hack (or by patrol cars).
MFA is now the standard. One of the biggest criticisms (and valid, imho) was the lack of Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA). Since those findings were published, Flock has stated that 97% of law enforcement users have now adopted MFA or Single Sign-On (SSO). New accounts created after late 2024 have MFA enabled by default. If the SMPD follows basic IT protocols (which most mid-to-large departments do), the "password-only" vulnerability is largely a thing of the past.
"Watching you live" isn't really how it works There’s a misconception that these are live-streaming CCTV cameras. They are Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs). They take a still image of a plate, compare it to a "Hot List" (stolen cars, AMBER alerts), and then the image is encrypted and sent to the cloud. They aren't designed to be "browsed" like a Netflix queue of your daily life.
There's an audit trail. Unlike a random private security camera, every single search an officer performs in the Flock system is logged. These audit trails include the officer's name, the timestamp, and the "Reason for Search." In many jurisdictions, this data is public record or subject to oversight. An officer can't just "stalk" an ex-partner without leaving a permanent digital fingerprint that could cost them their job.
We can’t ignore that these cameras actually work for high-priority crimes. In cities where they’ve been deployed, they are the primary tool for solving hit-and-runs, finding kidnapped children, etc. For a city like Santa Monica with high tourist traffic and vehicle-related crime, I personally think the benefit of catching a hit-and-run suspect often outweighs the theoretical risk of someone physically climbing a pole to hack a single sensor.
No system is 100% unhackable, but there's a big difference between a controlled lab exploit by a professional researcher and a legitimate threat to the average citizen.
There absolutely should be push for better security audits, but let’s not throw out a tool that helps keep our streets safer based on a viral video.
Brother they are literally able to be "browsed like Netflix"
I agree this isn’t some movie-style remote hacking situation. But the issue for a lot of us isn’t the viral video or physical access, it’s how the data gets shared and who ultimately controls it. Even with MFA and audit logs, Flock lets agencies run searches across a huge nationwide network, and there are documented data used for things like immigration enforcement and protest monitoring in cities that explicitly said they wouldn’t allow that Also our city is pretty vague on their data sharing policies. City Councils in Austin, Denver, and Cambridge have stopped their agreements. And San Jose is getting sued by consumer tech/civil liberties groups.
Those are fair concerns, but those are different from the security concerns OP raised.
The questions on civil liberties are important and should be addressed.
Counterpoint: Fuck mass surveillance. The existence of these cameras is a threat to every citizen.
That's not a counterpoint. I didn't post a single thing supporting mass surveillance.
What I did do was try to present factual information about security concerns.
Conversations benefit from having as many facts on the table as possible.
As I said, the civil liberity question is still very valid & should be discussed.
Flock cameras should be governed like a serious investigative tool, not a casual lookup service. Use should be limited to clearly defined serious crimes, and any license-plate query should require a two-step authorization (e.g., local + state, state + federal, or local + federal) or a judge-signed warrant comparable to a wiretap standard so officers can’t run plates out of curiosity or for personal reasons. Given the documented risk of misreads and mix-ups that can lead to wrongful stops or arrests, there also needs to be strict auditing, retention limits, and penalties for misuse. we should be honest about effectiveness: routine, broad use won’t reliably stop sophisticated bad actors who can evade detection by swapping plates or changing transportation methods.
This recent video convinced me of this- https://youtu.be/FHZAOTzHVLE?si=eKNrgGaMwwoAXGpc
There are cameras in almost every business, every residence, and every corner in every city these days. It is too late to worry about being recorded, pandora's box has already opened. What we do need is cameras that monitor speeding drivers and then automatically ticket them. I wouldn't mind being recorded more if it leads to more enforcement and safer streets. Regarding the ability to be hacked, yes it is a problem, but it is not that big of a problem, because anyone could just record any street legally in public. It is protected under the first amendment (freedom of press).
Where are they
A user-ran map of cameras is at deflock.me
My YouTube feed is full of videos demonstrating the absolutely abysmal security standards of these things.
How can I view the data and streams of these Flock cameras?
There are several white colored, non-Flock security cameras attached to traffic lights at intersections all over the city. Any info on those?
Get the Flock out of Santa Monica!
Can we have a community discussion and work to push back against manufactured consent?
We have Flock cameras??? WTF??
Can you link to this supposed security or lack thereof?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU1-uiUlHTo
Cool, but what you said does not match up with what this video says at all.
Lack of security features, means that it is entirely impossible to secure. Which is just false. The address that the video browsed to, is no longer visible to outsiders as an example. Sloppy configuration doesn't mean it's lacking security features.
edit//I see you're not the op, but my criticism still applies.
I welcome the cameras. I've had two catalytic converters stolen in the last month.
There are also frequent false allegations against bus drivers running red lights due to personal vendettas.
So all of the bad activities will be on camera to stop them from happening?
No it’s for TRACKING, retroactively. Not catching crimes in action. Still absolutely Orwellian.
Seems useful to have. If someone does a hit-and-run at an intersection then the camera can track down the culprit.