As North Texas police departments have increasingly turned to surveillance technologies to aid in investigations, civil liberties advocates have expressed concerns about the potential impact of constant monitoring on individual privacy. Now, an investigation has found flaws in the security of cameras owned by one company active across Dallas.
Flock Safety operates hundreds of license plate-reading cameras across Dallas and thousands across North Texas. The mounted cameras have become ubiquitous with local law enforcement across the country since the tech company was launched in 2017, and the company has faced scrutiny for its involvement in some cases, such as last year’s hunt for a North Texas woman accused of having an abortion.
In December, YouTuber Benn Jordan and the technology publication 404 Media published an investigation that found dozens of Flock-operated devices were left open to online monitoring and tampering. Around 60 cameras were affected, and it is unclear where each of those cameras was placed in the U.S. Flock declined to tell the Observer whether any North Texas-based cameras were included in the leak, but said in a statement that the leak was a result of a “limited configuration issue” that affected a “very small number” of video devices…