As Public Fury Mounts, Texas Pulls the Plug on Flock Surveillance Funding

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered state companies to cease funding Flock Security’s AI-powered surveillance cameras, the newest blow to the license-plate-reader firm as backlash over its nationwide community intensifies.

Abbott issued the directive Thursday evening, his workplace confirmed to the Texas Tribune, which reported the transfer because it ready to publish an investigation exhibiting a state company had steered at the least $30 million towards constructing out Texas’s Flock community by way of grants to native police.

Spokesperson Andrew Mahaleris instructed the Tribune that companies are clarifying that state funds can’t be used for Flock cameras, noting most metropolis funding for the gadgets comes from the federal authorities.

In accordance with the Tribune, the state’s Motor Automobile Crime Prevention Authority has helped set up at the least 3,200 Flock cameras since 2023, with the Division of Public Security including almost 1,200 extra below a $15.9 million contract. A lot of that cash traced again to a 2023 regulation that tacked $1 onto auto insurance coverage insurance policies to battle catalytic converter theft, funds lawmakers instructed the Tribune have been by no means mentioned for surveillance cameras.

In a radio interview, Abbott described a “crackdown” underway as cities cancel contracts amid privateness issues and misuse reviews, the Tribune reported. He cited a Lufkin officer going through 100 counts of misusing public data for allegedly surveilling 11 individuals, and stated at the least six Texas departments have positioned officers on depart or below investigation previously month.

Flock cameras use AI to log automobile particulars like make, mannequin, shade and bumper stickers, and might be networked so companies throughout the nation share entry, making a sprawling surveillance internet that critics say operates with little oversight.

That attain has turned the corporate right into a lightning rod. Opposition has swelled right into a bipartisan revolt, with the battle reaching Capitol Hill, the place lawmakers from each events have raised alarms concerning the scale of Flock’s community and the amount of knowledge every digicam captures.

The strain has escalated in latest weeks. Sen. Bernie Sanders vowed to introduce federal laws to halt what he known as AI mass surveillance, warning the know-how is steering the nation towards a surveillance state. Within the final yr, Flock had aggressively expanded its footprint throughout the nation, together with a police software that lets officers observe particular person drivers and a deliberate nationwide plate-scanning fleet that will have enlisted Uber drivers to assemble information on the transfer.

Whilst scrutiny grows, Flock has defended its know-how as a public-safety software, telling the Tribune it helps considerate laws with privateness guardrails. Final week, Flock CEO Garrett Langley prompt in an interview with Fox Information that People ought to “compromise” on privateness, including that those who body the argument as a alternative between privateness and security are “prioritizing the mistaken factor.”

With contract cancellations spreading, felony prices piling up in opposition to officers who allegedly abused the system, and politicians on either side lining up in opposition to it, the corporate faces a widening disaster of public belief that Abbott’s funding freeze solely deepens.