Author: Sarah Hamid

Throughout 2025, EFF conducted groundbreaking investigations into Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) network, revealing a system designed to enable mass surveillance and susceptible to grave abuses. Our research sparked state and federal investigations, drove landmark litigation, and exposed dangerous expansion into always-listening voice detection technology. We documented how Flock’s surveillance infrastructure allowed law […]

Across ideologically diverse communities, 2025 campaigns against automated license plate reader (ALPR) surveillance kept winning. From Austin, Texas to Cambridge, Massachusetts to Eugene, Oregon, successful campaigns combined three practical elements: a motivated political champion on city council, organized grassroots pressure from affected communities, and technical assistance at critical decision moments. The 2025 Formula for Refusal […]

Two recent statements from the surveillance company—one addressing Illinois privacy violations and another defending the company’s national surveillance network—reveal a troubling pattern: when confronted by evidence of widespread abuse, Flock Safety has blamed users, downplayed harms, and doubled down on the very systems that enabled the violations in the first place. Flock’s aggressive public relations […]

Community members coordinated to pack Little Rock City Hall on Tuesday, where board members voted 5-3 to end the city’s contract with ShotSpotter. Initially funded through a federal grant, Little Rock began its experiment with the “gunshot detection” sensors in 2018. ShotSpotter (now SoundThinking) has long been accused of steering federal grants toward local police […]