The first time I heard about Flock cameras was when I was handed a small flyer while walking through downtown Eugene this summer. The words “mass surveillance” immediately stood out on the page.
Eugene City Manager Sarah Medary signed a two-year contract with Flock Security back in March. The automatic license plate readers were quickly installed by May, and just five months later, were shut down by Medary on Oct. 14.
The cameras have been a huge source of controversy for months, as this surveillance is both an invasion of privacy and a breach of local safety. With increasing Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests in the local area, ICE’s history of accessing data from Flock and Flock’s new partnership with Amazon’s Ring doorbell, there’s potential for these cameras to have a wide-reaching impact on the Eugene community…