The Download

Flock

TL;DR: Police officers across the US are being accused of using Flock’s license plate cameras to stalk people, per a Washington Post report yesterday. Last week, Flock CEO Garrett Langley conceded to The Drive that “the abuse is a problem”—but his explanation of what the company is doing about it may leave people unsatisfied.

What happened: At least 50 police officers have been charged with—or accused of—using license plate readers for unauthorized purposes like stalking people (46 of whom used Flock’s system), per the Post.

Here are just some of the company’s recent controversies, many of which came to light in the past month:

• Last May, police in Texas used Flock to look for a woman suspected of self-managing an abortion. The search included 83,000 cameras, some in states where abortion is legal. The sheriff defended it as a welfare check.
• The Drive reporter who later interviewed Langley was a victim himself: He was boxed in by police cars outside a Kohl’s after a data entry error flagged the car he was driving as stolen. (Separately, an analysis of 2023 and 2024 data found that Flock misread license plates in 71% of the alerts it sent to police in Roseville, CA.)
• In Milwaukee, an officer illegally ran a partner’s plate 124 times; the detective assigned to investigate that officer was himself charged with Flock misuse.
• A 404 Media review found that police departments across the US have used Flock cameras hundreds of times to search for specific people instead of cars, sometimes referencing a person’s race or political affiliation.

Let’s get physical: Backlash against Flock has been increasing, and it’s even taken to the streets—protesters have thrown paint on cameras, snipped their wires, printed 3D objects to obstruct their view, and put trash bags over them. In one non-destructive protest, a 77-year-old in St. Petersburg, FL, blocked a camera with a sign taped to a pool skimmer reading “Down with Flock cameras” (in all caps). At least six cities have deactivated the cameras or canceled their contracts with Flock.

Langley acknowledged the problem in the interview with The Drive and pointed to the company’s existing guardrails, but stopped short of specifics when asked about future ones. The company told the Post it “will soon be announcing better filters and tools to stop abuse before it happens.”

Bottom line: “Over a million cases were solved last year with this technology, and the level of abuse is incredibly low relative to that,” Langley said. Which is a fair point, until you run the math—at roughly 20 billion plate scans a month, “incredibly low” still affects a lot of people. —LC

      

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The Zeitbyte

The tyranny of a weather app’s rain icon

Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Adobe Stock

Somewhere in the world right now, the raindrop icon on a popular weather app is ruining a business owner’s day. These apps are built to be convenient and (to put it in technical terms) be idiot-proof. A sun, a cloud, or the dreaded raindrop seemingly boils complex meteorological factors down to a binary answer to, “Will it rain or not?” And just the appearance of that gloomy little icon can, apparently, cut business in half, one beachside shop owner told Business Insider—regardless of whether a single drop actually falls.

The damage of a rain forecast can be enormous, immediately denting foot traffic and spending for businesses, according to a study recently presented at the American Economic Association. This past March, more than 100 outdoor attractions in the UK even wrote to the national weather service about how much money they lost due to misleading rain icons. But for the rebels who don’t live and die by a collection of pixels on a weather widget, the false alarm forecasts are great for one thing: avoiding crowds on days that turn out to be sunny after all. —WK

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• Welp, that was quick… that very controversial and confusing Google Earth update we talked about on Friday lasted all of one day.
• A popular author and YouTuber has apologized for his unhealthy use of ChatGPT, saying he’s been “careless.”
• We’ve now got a rare glimpse into China’s surveillance ecosystem thanks to an unsecured, futuristic-looking dashboard that was reportedly accessed by police.
• Select the squares with a traffic light: If you can’t read all the latest product reviews on Amazon, it might be because the company thinks you’re a bot.
• People are absolutely roasting Sam Altman’s latest post on X about a “cool use case” for AI.
• Thirty years’ worth of DNA evidence in crime reports was reportedly at risk of being hacked without a trace.
• And the award for worst take on AI this year goes to the CEO of Fender (yes, the guitar company).

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