‘Flock City PD:’ The Fake Flock-Owned ‘Police Department’ That Searched Real Cameras for Real People
404 Media Jason Koebler ● Covered by 3 sources
Flock made a fake police account, “Flock City PD,” and used it to search real camera feeds. The demos hit people with signs, masks, and even religious symbols — exactly the kind of surveillance many cities fear.
Based on reporting by 404 Media, Jason Koebler — read the original for the full story.
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Flock created a fake law-enforcement identity called “Flock City PD” and used it during sales and training demos to search live automated license plate reader cameras in several U.S. cities. Public records and audit logs reviewed by 404 Media show the account querying real feeds for people holding signs, crowds, masks, and other sensitive targets. In some cases, Flock says, the point was to prove the system would refuse the search or trigger a warning.
The list of prompts is ugly in the way only a surveillance product demo can be ugly. The logs include searches such as “coexist bumper sticker,” “vehicle a pretty girl would drive,” “white truck with a trump sticker,” “religious cars,” “Star of David,” and “don’t tread on me flag.” Other Flock accounts, including “Flock City PD - Law Enforcement Demo,” “Flock Intelligence,” and “Flock Safety - Commercial Sales Demo,” ran similar FreeForm searches in Dunwoody, Georgia, Bryan, Texas, and other unnamed jurisdictions.
FreeForm is Flock’s AI image search system, where the software decides what matches the prompt. The audit logs show mixed results. Some searches were allowed outright, including “crowd,” “person wearing scrubs,” and “large group with signs.” Others produced warning pop-ups, and some were blocked, including “vehicle a pretty girl would drive.” Flock says the warnings are part of the guardrails.
That explanation is not landing well in Dunwoody. Residents there have told city council they feel like they are being used as test subjects in a private company’s sales pitch. After 404 Media and resident Jason Hunyar reported that Flock employees had accessed cameras in places like a children’s gymnastics room, a playground, a school, a pool, and a Jewish community center, the city and company said Dunwoody cameras would no longer be used for sales demos.
Flock now says the “Flock City PD” demo environment is isolated and that law enforcement agencies cannot form a sharing relationship with it. A recent training webinar seen by 404 Media showed a Flock employee logged into the account with access to cameras labeled for training, such as “Flock Warehouse - LPR Demo Cameras,” “Circle K - Demo,” “Tennessee Demo Cameras,” “Scottsdale AZ Demo Video Cameras,” and “ALPR Demo.” The company says these searches were for testing safeguards, not customer investigations. The logs show the system did not always act the way that story suggests.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
This is the usual surveillance-company dodge: call it testing, then test on the public anyway. The real issue isn’t whether the guardrails exist; it’s that a for-profit vendor gets to decide when people’s faces, plates, and politics are fair game. That should make any city nervous, especially the ones still signing contracts like this is just another software demo.
Read more about this at: 404 Media
