‘Minority Report’ Comes to Mind as Flock Cameras Track Drivers Nationwide

By Lucretia Hughes Klucken

COLUMBUS, Ohio — An Ohio State University professor warned Columbus officials that the growing network of Flock Safety cameras is reversing the traditional foundation of American law enforcement by placing every driver under continuous, searchable surveillance.

V.N. “Viet” Trinh, an assistant professor at Ohio State, criticized the technology during an Aug. 10 Columbus City Council hearing examining the police department’s use of automated license plate readers.

Trinh described the system as a tool for investigating “pre-crimes” because it records innocent people before police have identified a crime or suspect.

The 2002 movie “Minority Report” immediately comes to mind.

In the film, the government arrests people for crimes authorities predict they will commit in the future. Flock cameras do not literally predict crimes or determine that a driver is guilty. However, they collect location information on millions of vehicles whose occupants are not suspected of wrongdoing, allowing authorities to search that history later.

That distinction matters, but it does not eliminate the constitutional concern.

Traditional police investigations generally begin with a crime. Officers identify evidence, develop suspects and obtain additional information as the investigation progresses.

Flock’s model reverses that sequence.

The cameras collect information on everyone passing within view. The government can search the database after a crime occurs, even though nearly every person recorded had no connection to criminal activity.

Flock’s Falcon cameras photograph passing vehicles and record license plate numbers, vehicle colors and distinguishing features such as bumper stickers, decals and visible damage. Each image is connected to the time and location where it was captured.

The information is uploaded into a database that police can search by plate number or vehicle description.

Flock says its license plate cameras do not use facial recognition and do not automatically connect their records to motor vehicle databases. The cameras also do not follow a vehicle in the traditional sense.

But when a vehicle passes multiple cameras, the resulting records can be assembled into a history of where that vehicle traveled and when it was there.

Call it tracking or call it data collection. The result is a powerful surveillance network capable of reconstructing portions of an individual’s movements.

Columbus began contracting with Flock in 2023. The city currently operates 65 active cameras and plans to expand the network to 76, according to WOSU Public Media.

The privately maintained DeFlock project estimates that approximately 580 cameras are operating throughout Franklin County.

The controversy intensified after an audit found that the Columbus Police Department’s Flock network had been searched more than 15,000 times for potentially immigration-related purposes.

The audit reportedly found no searches conducted directly by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Privacy advocates argue, however, that federal agencies can request searches through local departments that already possess access.

Columbus police disabled nationwide sharing in June and later shut down statewide sharing after Mayor Andrew Ginther reviewed the audit. The department said it would individually evaluate requests from other agencies.

That response demonstrates the problem.

A government surveillance system should not depend solely on internal policies that officials can change tomorrow. Clear laws, judicial oversight, strict access rules and meaningful penalties for misuse should exist before mass surveillance is deployed — not after the public discovers how extensively it has been used.

Police officials defend the cameras as an effective investigative tool.

Deputy Police Chief Tim Myers said Flock technology helped investigators with approximately 60% of the city’s homicides last year. Officials have also credited the system with locating kidnapped children, finding stolen vehicles and helping solve violent crimes.

Those benefits are real and should not be casually dismissed.

If a child is abducted, every available tool should be used to find that child. If police have the license plate of a murder suspect or carjacker, cameras may help officers locate the vehicle before someone else is harmed.

The constitutional question is not whether technology can help solve crimes. It clearly can.

The question is whether solving some crimes justifies building a system that records everyone.

Americans should not be required to surrender their privacy merely because a surveillance tool may occasionally produce useful evidence. The government can make the same argument for monitoring every telephone call, financial transaction or private conversation.

Public safety and constitutional liberty must coexist.

At a minimum, searches should be tied to documented criminal cases. Access should be audited by an independent authority. Data should be retained for the shortest period reasonably necessary, and information should not be shared across jurisdictions without defined legal standards.

Warrant requirements should apply when authorities attempt to reconstruct a person’s movements over an extended period.

Flock recently announced additional safeguards following national criticism and reports of misuse. The company plans to require case codes for law-enforcement searches, create systems to flag suspicious activity and reduce its default retention period from 30 days to seven days by the end of 2026.

Those changes are an acknowledgment that the potential for abuse is not imaginary.

Technology advances faster than legislation, but the Constitution does not become obsolete whenever a new camera, algorithm or database is introduced.

The Fourth Amendment was written to protect Americans from unreasonable searches and unchecked government power. Its principles apply whether authorities are opening a person’s desk, tapping a telephone or searching a privately operated database containing years of movement information.

Flock cameras may not be the fictional “pre-crime” system depicted in “Minority Report.”

But a nation in which innocent citizens are constantly recorded, categorized and made searchable should make every American uncomfortable.

We should not wait until the system is abused against us personally before demanding limits.

The Real News with Lucretia Hughes — bringing the receipts, defending families and telling the truth the establishment would rather ignore.