洛杉矶警察局终止与监控巨头 Flock 的合同
LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire

原始链接: https://techcrunch.com/2026/07/13/lapd-lets-contract-with-surveillance-giant-flock-expire-citing-serious-concerns-over-civil-liberties-and-privacy/

洛杉矶警察局(LAPD)正在结束与监控公司 Flock Safety 为期三年的合同。该公司专门从事自动车牌识别业务,而洛杉矶警方此次终止合作,是出于对公民自由、隐私及数据安全的重大担忧。 作为 Flock 最大的政府客户之一,洛杉矶警察局选择不再续约,理由是他们需要更严格的合同条款来规范数据的存储与使用。在此之前,全美范围内对 Flock 的抵制情绪日益高涨。此前已有多个城市因担心联邦移民官员违规利用相关数据、破坏“庇护城市”政策而与该公司断绝了联系。 除隐私担忧外,Flock 还面临着越来越多的批评,包括被曝出安全漏洞导致实时摄像头画面泄露、缺乏多重身份验证,以及因技术错误导致警方错误拘留民众等事件。此外,相关调查还披露了联邦机构非法访问地方警局账户进行未经授权搜索的情况。尽管 Flock 对洛杉矶警方的决定表示惊讶,并声称该决定源于“误解”,但由于其数据处理方式及庞大监控网络被滥用的可能性,该公司目前仍处于公众和立法者的高度严密监管之下。

洛杉矶警察局(LAPD)与监控公司 Flock Safety 之间的自动车牌识别(ALPR)合同近期到期,这一事件在 Hacker News 上引发了关于隐私、执法问责制以及公共监控本质的激烈辩论。 批评者认为 Flock 的商业模式本质上具有掠夺性。由于 Flock 保留了实体摄像头和基础设施的所有权,一些司法管辖区即使在合同到期或颁布禁令后,也难以将其移除。此外,有用户指出,Flock 创建了一个可供多个机构访问的“全国性监控网络”,通过私营第三方数据收集有效地绕过了美国宪法第四修正案。 相反,一些评论者为该技术辩护,认为 ALPR 是侦破暴力犯罪和保护社区的宝贵工具。他们认为,问题不在于技术本身,而在于缺乏健全的审计、监督和法律保障措施。 该讨论帖突显了严重的观点分歧:一方将大规模监控视为威胁民主自由、不可避免的“全景监狱”;另一方则优先考虑局部安全和调查效用。归根结底,这场讨论强调了人们对企业“监控即服务”提供商以及负责管理这些系统的执法机构道德标准的普遍不信任。
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原文

The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is reportedly ending its deal with Flock Safety, a surveillance company that helps law enforcement track vehicles using thousands of its license plate cameras placed across the United States.

A senior LAPD official told news outlets, first reported by ABC7 and the Los Angeles Times, that the police department would allow its three-year contract with Flock to expire when it ends on Saturday. The department cited “serious concerns” around civil liberties and privacy. Flock’s cameras are operated by the Atlanta, Georgia-based company and not the LAPD.

“This contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras,” LAPD’s chief information officer Dean Gialamas was quoted as saying. “The LAPD had to make a difficult decision, in this case discontinuing using Flock services until we can get those data, privacy, security and sharing concerns ironed out through a contractual relationship.”

A spokesperson for the LAPD did not respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch over the weekend, and it’s unclear if Flock’s cameras will continue recording in absence of an active contract. According to ABC7, the police department is seeking new language in its contract addressing privacy and data storage concerns.

As the third-largest police department in the U.S., the LAPD is one of Flock’s largest government customers to date. Several major U.S. cities have also stopped working with Flock, including Mountain View, California and South Portland, Maine, citing privacy worries and concerns that federal immigration officials used the cameras to track people in violation of their local laws governing their sanctuary city policies.

The contract expiry caught the surveillance company by “surprise,” said Flock spokesperson Holly Beilin in an email to TechCrunch. Flock said it was confident that the company could “clear up the current misconceptions” that led to the contract’s end. Flock would not say which specific misconceptions it was referring to.

Flock has a network of at least 80,000 cameras around the U.S. that scan license plates and allow police and federal agencies to track vehicles. 

The company has faced heavy backlash from local communities that have approved and then reneged on their deals with Flock over concerns with privacy and surveillance. Some locals have taken matters into their own hands by dismantling Flock cameras and covering them with trash bags, even as some communities found that Flock reinstalled cameras without permission from local authorities.

Researchers have identified an uptick in documented cases of motorists being pulled over, detained, and held at gunpoint by police, or jailed, due to false positives and errors with license plate readers. Last week, a journalist with car reviews and news website The Drive detailed how he was tracked for days and later boxed-in by police after a Flock camera mistakenly flagged the license plate of the on-loan review unit he was driving as stolen.

Flock has also faced scrutiny following several security lapses that have exposed cameras and data, which in one case allowed independent news outlet 404 Media to watch themselves live on publicly exposed Flock cameras. Lawmakers have also urged federal consumer authorities to investigate Flock for failing to implement measures that would prevent hackers and spies from gaining access to its security cameras, warning that many of the police user logins are not protected with multi-factor authentication.

404 Media also reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used a local police officer’s password without their knowledge to search for a suspect accused of an immigration violation.

Do you know about security or privacy issues with Flock Safety, or issues with Flock cameras in your community? We would love to hear from you. From a non-work device, you can securely contact Zack Whittaker on the Signal messaging app with the username zackwhittaker.1337.

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