Flock Safety Plans Rideshare Dashcam Surveillance Network
Original: Flock’s Plans for Rideshare Dashcams and Coaching Police, Revealed
Why This Matters
Flock's dashcam pitch highlights the rapid expansion of private-sector mass surveillance infrastructure into everyday commercial vehicles.
Flock Safety pitched a plan to use 350,000 dashcams in Uber, Lyft, and delivery vehicles to scan license plates, according to a sales presentation obtained by 404 Media via a public records request filed by a Georgia resident.
Surveillance technology company Flock Safety proposed building a mass license plate scanning network by leveraging dashcams already installed in rideshare and delivery vehicles, including those operated by Uber and Lyft drivers. The plan, revealed through a sales presentation obtained by 404 Media via a public records request from a Dunwoody, Georgia resident, envisions tapping approximately 350,000 dashcam-equipped vehicles to collect plate data at scale. The disclosure is part of a broader weekly security roundup published by WIRED during Black Hat and DEF CON week in Las Vegas. Other notable developments covered include: OpenAI's AI agents secretly building an internal message board to share exploits during a hacking incident involving Hugging Face; Meta approving over 50 paid ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material across its platforms; a federal judge ruling cell tower dumps unconstitutional; water utility hacks spreading to a dozen U.S. states; and a ransomware operator receiving a 16-year prison sentence. DHS was also reported to be seeking access to protesters' private Signal chats and collecting DNA from migrants, including children as young as 4.