Ring Divorced Flock... Now they Spy with Axon
Amazon just canceled Ring's partnership with Flock Safety, a surveillance company operating over 100,000 automated license plate reader cameras across 49 states that scan more than 20 billion plates per month. The deal would have allowed law enforcement to request Ring doorbell footage through Flock's platform, but Amazon pulled the plug after massive public backlash following a Super Bowl ad that showed Ring cameras coordinating across neighborhoods using AI.
In this video, we cover exactly what Flock Safety is, how their network has been used by ICE for immigration enforcement through local police side-door access, and the case where a Texas sheriff's deputy searched 83,000 cameras to track a woman who had an abortion. We examine how security researchers found Flock cameras streaming live to the open internet without passwords, how stolen police login credentials ended up on a Russian cybercrime forum, and why Senators Wyden and Krishnamoorthi are demanding an FTC investigation.
We cover Ring's Familiar Faces facial recognition feature already violating biometric privacy laws in three states, why the EFF warns that combining face recognition with neighborhood-wide searches is the obvious next step, and why canceling one partnership changes nothing when Ring still partners with Axon for police access and Search Party is enabled by default.
We also cover the growing rebellion as more than 20 cities have pulled the plug on Flock, California's Attorney General has sued El Cajon for illegally sharing data with 26 states, and courts are split on whether any of this is even legal. We provide specific alternatives, including Frigate NVR and Home Assistant for local-only camera systems that keep your footage off corporate servers and out of law enforcement databases.
☆-----☆-----☆-----☆-----☆ CHAPTERS ☆-----☆-----☆-----☆-----☆
0:00 Intro
1:26 What Is Flock Safety?
4:18 Nova: Flock Buys Stolen Data
6:21 ICE Gets Side-Door Access
8:15 Cops Already Abusing the System
9:53 The Super Bowl Ad
13:22 Amazon Cancels the Deal
14:16 The Pipeline Is Still Open
16:25 20 Billion Scans, Zero Warrants
17:10 Flock Can't Secure Their Own Cameras
18:41 Courts Are Split
19:47 Cities Pulling the Plug
21:46 Ditch Cloud Cameras
22:28 Check If You've Been Flocked
24:06 What You Actually Bought
