Flock Is Catching Flak. Experts Say Other Police Surveillance Tools Are More Worrisome

Police officers in cities across the United States are quick to extol the virtues of real-time crime centers as a game changer that helps them find missing children, monitor large events from the skies and scope out dangerous scenes before putting an officer in harm’s way.

Hundreds of police departments have one of these central hubs, which have existed for years. But many are now being powered with AI software, such as Fusus, from the public-safety technology giant Axon.

Fusus, by Axon’s own description, is a “rapidly deployable real-time crime center in the cloud.” It functions like the brain of a crime center, synthesizing the data it pulls in and allowing police command centers to watch an entire city from one place.

Flock cameras, the automated license plate readers, have faced intense backlash in recent months amid stories of abuse. Yet privacy experts say they’re just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to police surveillance.

“I have been watching the debate about Flock with a little bit of puzzlement,” says Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University. “Because real-time crime centers have not just ALPR cameras and sensors, but video analytics and drones and essentially a way to create a visual single-pane-of-glass vision of what’s going on in a city, with time machine capabilities where you can go back and investigate crime.”

Tools like Axon Fusus, which is a leader in this type of software, also pull in footage and data from police body cameras, law enforcement dashcams, 911 dispatch, gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras, including sometimes those of private businesses that opt in.

Its use is growing fast. In 2024, the technology news site 404 Media reported that just over 100 law enforcement agencies had deployed Fusus, which was then its own company and was acquired by Axon that year. The number of law enforcement agencies using the tool has more than doubled since then, according to Axon.

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Police officers in departments that use Fusus told NPR that the tool serves as a time-saver and a force multiplier for their agencies.

“We could put analysts in a room and have them access 40 different systems,” says Benjamin Weir, a captain with the Oklahoma City Police Department. “But that slows them down. So the biggest leveraging factor for a real-time information center to be productive is to have software that can incorporate all these things into one usable area.”

Quincy Whitner, a lieutenant with the Greenville County Sheriff’s Office in South Carolina, says Fusus helped his department find a man who shot a police officer and fled the scene, by combining city surveillance footage with license plate data.

“Instead of having to go to a million different systems, a million different places to find answers, we can get it in one platform in one place somewhat instantaneously,” says Whitner.

Privacy concerns when surveillance is easy

But that push-of-a-button mentality is exactly what makes privacy experts nervous.

Rachel Levinson-Waldman, director of the Liberty and National Security Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, says even a few decades ago, there were more hurdles to overcome when police officers wanted to surveil members of the community. They might have to physically follow someone or do a stakeout. It took time, staffing and resources.

“In addition to all of the things that you would want in place requiring some kind of criminal predicate to launch it, there is just this kind of organic friction that imposes some constraints,” she says. “As that friction gets lifted, it becomes easier and easier to do investigations, to look at people and even to pull up broad-scale information.”

Police told NPR that they understand those concerns but that the good — the potential for stopping and solving crime — outweighs the bad — the potential for misuse and mass surveillance.

“I understand people’s concerns, but if you’re not up to no good, we’re not looking at you. We are looking at people who are committing crimes,” says Michelle Iezzi, deputy director of the Operational Intelligence Division at the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland.

Axon did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But CEO Rick Smith said on the latest earnings call that the company strongly values privacy: “We just have to be thoughtful and understand those concerns and say, ‘Look, this is a tool to amplify human ability, not to replace human judgment.'”

But there is broad potential for abuse when a police department is always watching, privacy experts say; surveillance technology can sweep up innocent people by mistake, and it can enable targeting.

“What happens if there is a government that wants to silence a particular group or even a particular person? And you just built the architecture of surveillance that makes that super-easy,” says Ferguson, the George Washington University law professor.

Courts are moving slowly in deciding when or if this kind of surveillance crosses a constitutional line. In the meantime, Ferguson says, lawmakers could act by limiting how long data is stored, for instance, mandating regular audits or restricting surveillance near sensitive sites like abortion clinics or immigration courts.

He says those conversations should be happening before a tool ever is used.

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Transcript:

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Protesters in many cities have focused on Flock cameras, which use AI to gather information on passing cars. Privacy experts are pointing out another surveillance tool – technology and police command centers that can watch a whole city from one place using many sources of information. Here’s NPR’s Meg Anderson.

MEG ANDERSON, BYLINE: Police officers in cities across the country will tell you their real-time crime center is a game changer. They’ll tell you how it helps them find missing children, monitor big events from the skies, scope out dangerous scenes before putting an officer in harm’s way. Hundreds of police departments have one of these central hubs. They’ve existed for years. But now many of them are being powered with AI.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Welcome to Axon Fusus, your rapidly deployable real-time crime center in the cloud.

ANDERSON: Software like Fusus from the public safety tech company Axon functions like a brain. It synthesizes the data it pulls in, creating a one-stop shop for police surveillance.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Now video and data feeds from a variety of sources and apps can be viewed together in a single pane of glass.

ANDERSON: By now, you’ve probably heard a lot about automated license plate readers like Flock. But researchers who study police technology told NPR real-time crime centers are much more extensive. They pull in license plate data, but also body-worn cameras, police dashcams, drones, 911 dispatch, gunshot detectors and surveillance cameras, sometimes even from private businesses. Quincy Whitner is with the Greenville County Sheriff’s Department in South Carolina. He says Fusus helped his department find a man who shot a police officer and fled by combining city surveillance footage with license plate data.

QUINCY WHITNER: It’s a time and a force multiplier for us. Instead of having to go to a million different systems, a million different places to find answers, we can get it in one platform and one place somewhat instantaneously.

ANDERSON: But that push-of-a-button mentality is exactly what makes privacy experts nervous. Rachel Levinson-Waldman studies these tools at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. She says even just a few decades ago, there were more hurdles in surveillance.

RACHEL LEVINSON-WALDMAN: If an officer or a police department wanted to follow somebody, wanted to do a stakeout, wanted to launch an investigation, part of the friction is the resources that go into that.

ANDERSON: Like staffing and time. There needed to be a good reason to go to all that effort. Now, she says, it is just easier to justify watching people.

LEVINSON-WALDMAN: So in some ways, going from the, we have this individualized reason to suspect wrongdoing, to, well, we just have a wealth of data – let’s look in there and maybe see if we can find something wrong.

ANDERSON: Police told NPR they understand those concerns but that the good outweighs the bad. Michelle Iezzi manages the real-time crime center at the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland.

MICHELLE IEZZI: I understand people’s concerns. But if you’re not up to no good, we’re not looking at you (laughter). We are looking at people who are committing crimes.

ANDERSON: Axon did not respond to multiple requests for comment. But CEO Rick Smith said in the company’s latest earnings call that they strongly value privacy.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RICK SMITH: We just have to be thoughtful and understand those concerns and say, look, this is a tool to amplify human ability not to replace human judgment.

ANDERSON: But, like we’ve seen with Flock cameras, there is potential for abuse when a police department is always watching. Privacy experts say tech can get it wrong. People can get swept up by mistake or even targeted. Meg Anderson, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, “WATCHING THE DETECTIVES”) ELVIS COSTELLO: (Singing) Just like watching the detectives. Don’t get cute.