{"id":14444,"date":"2026-07-21T05:03:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:03:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/21\/on-flock-license-plate-tracking-cameras-html\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T05:03:56","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T05:03:56","slug":"on-flock-license-plate-tracking-cameras-html","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/2026\/07\/21\/on-flock-license-plate-tracking-cameras-html\/","title":{"rendered":"On Flock License Plate Tracking Cameras"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
On Flock License Plate Tracking Cameras<\/div>\n

\t

\n
<\/BR>
\n
\n \t

\n
<\/BR><\/p>\n

\n

A recent story of a writer who was mistakenly<\/a> identified, tracked, and arrested using data from Flock cameras has gone viral.<\/p>\n

\n

The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM<\/b>, not 34 10 DTM<\/b>. But when the police report was created and the plate was entered into Flock\u2019s system, it was just recorded as 34 DTM<\/b>. Just the five large characters, no little number in the middle. And Flock\u2019s AI tech wasn\u2019t registering that non-standard little number when it began picking up the Range Rover around town. It just saw 34 DTM<\/b> in large type and started alerting the local police.<\/p>\n

As we all stood there shaking our heads, including my wife, who was finally allowed to join me, I connected the final dot. A lot of vehicles in JLR\u2019s media fleet have a New Jersey manufacturer plate with the same alphanumeric structure\u00ad34 ## DTM\u00adand Officer Ganshyn observed that meant it was now a nationwide issue. Anywhere a police department has a partnership with Flock, any other JLR-owned car with the same plate structure is going to get flagged as stolen. In fact, four other 34 ## DTM<\/b> cars were being tracked around Minnesota that week, according to Officer Ganshyn. I was just the first one to get nabbed. The only way to stop it would be for the LAPD to correct their initial report and update Flock\u2019s system, which Jaguar Land Rover was now racing to make happen following the phone call.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Flock has responded to the bad press. First, they affirmed<\/a> that their systems were working correctly, and blamed the police:<\/p>\n

\n

The obvious question was that Flock cameras were looking for 34 DTM, and the plate on the car I was driving was 34 10 DTM. Why was that flagged as a match?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that the ML [machine learning] works is it correctly read what it was supposed to read. It was fed those characters that you said, 34 DTM, and it spit back out [a result] with the characters, 34 DTM,\u201d Thomas said. \u201cIt was asked, can you find this? And it did find that. It just didn\u2019t say if there\u2019s more here, then don\u2019t do it. It just simply said, is it there? And the answer was yes.\u201d<\/p>\n

He explained that even if the 10 was normal size, Flock would still have flagged it as a match, because that\u2019s how they\u2019ve set it up according to law enforcement\u2019s requests. Sometimes partial plates are all they have to go on at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way that law enforcement likes to use these tools is, if any of the characters that they have put into these hot lists get read, they want to get those alerts,\u201d he said. \u201cNow, what we try to train officers to do is to do what you said, which is to verify that 34 DTM is what I\u2019m looking for, and what I\u2019m seeing is 34 10 DTM.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Second, Flock\u2019s CEO has apologized<\/a> for calling privacy advocates terrorists:<\/p>\n

\n

The CEO of Flock Safety, the company that runs an enormous network of cameras used by police departments across the U.S., hasn\u2019t been shy about taking on Flock\u2019s critics. Last year, he even called one group that tracks the location of Flock cameras \u201cterrorists.\u201d But he\u2019s had a change of heart. Or, at the very least, a change in PR strategy.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, the police are using<\/a> (alternate source<\/a>) the Flock camera network to track people in addition to cars:<\/p>\n

\n

Police departments around the country have used Flock cameras at least hundreds of times to search for specific people, not cars, using searches such as \u201cheavy-set male with a black and white hat,\u201d \u201cperson on skateboard,\u201d and \u201cperson wearing orange vest and construction hat,\u201d according to data reviewed by 404 Media. Sometimes searches reference a target\u2019s race or signs of their political affiliation. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And, like all police surveillance technologies, there are abuses<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\t

\n
<\/BR>
\n Bruce Schneier
\n \t

\n
<\/BR>
\nGo to bruce schneier<\/a>
\n \t

\n
<\/BR><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Flock License Plate Tracking Cameras A recent story of a writer who was mistakenly identified, tracked, and arrested using data from Flock cameras has gone viral. The New Jersey plates that were allegedly stolen from the LA dealer were 34 03 DTM, not 34 10 DTM. But when the police report was created and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,472,341,99,86,1],"tags":[87],"class_list":["post-14444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bruce-schneier","category-cameras","category-cars","category-law-enforcement","category-tracking","category-uncategorized","tag-bruce-schneier"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14444"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/serisec.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}