The Flock technology isn’t the problem. It is how it is used.

BY BRENT MCCONNELL

As part of my professional life, I’ve spent much time in places where personal privacy was rare. In a Beijing hotel room I woke to find a Chinese man standing at the end of my bed staring at me. He said nothing. He took nothing. He had accessed my room to let me know I was under Chinese government control. Russians copied and wiped all of my electronic gear in Kyiv. In India, teams watched me through bathroom mirrors and were caught in my room when I returned from dinner early. These messages were unmistakable: we’re watching you, and we can reach you whenever we want.

That is what surveillance looks like when it becomes an instrument of control – when the government decides who is watched, who has access and who must simply accept it. We don’t become a surveillance society overnight. It happens one decision at a time, each one sounding perfectly reasonable – decisions that, in sum, would face significant resistance if the end game were obvious early on. I understand the international game and why it happens, but bristle when I sense its creep here at home. It’s why I pay close attention when surveillance technology arrives in my own backyard.

It has arrived. Slender pole-mounted cameras made by a company called Flock Safety are going up across our area. These automated license plate readers photograph every passing vehicle and record every plate, make, model, color, roof racks, even dented bumpers – and store the information in a searchable database. This is not a small experiment; Flock says its system operates in thousands of communities across 49 states. The company also says every user action on its platform is logged and auditable, and searches require a stated reason. This matters because we know the machinery for accountability already exists. Whether anyone locally is required to use it, check it and act on that accountability is another question entirely.

So how many cameras are watching us? The honest answer is that nobody can tell you. Camera locations are exempt from Florida’s public records law; when a local news station asked the Lee, Charlotte and Collier sheriff’s offices where their cameras are, all three declined to answer. A crowdsourced map lists more than 200 cameras across Lee County, many owned not by police but by private communities and businesses that share their data with law enforcement – and those private cameras appear in no government record at all. What we can learn are the contracts: camera counts and costs are public records, if we ask.

There are real benefits. These cameras have helped recover stolen vehicles, solve murders and locate abducted children. They notify deputies when a vehicle connected to a missing person or a Silver Alert enters an area. In a community like ours, where many residents have aging family members, that matters. In an area filled with seasonal homes, a camera that never sleeps can also help solve burglaries that otherwise might go nowhere. Many supporters opine that if someone is not breaking a law, they should not be concerned about being tracked. I believe that is a valid opinion, but only under one condition: that those doing the tracking are accountable for how they use the technology.

The bad is real too. In Texas, an officer used license plate data from thousands of cameras nationwide to track a woman for personal reasons. Researchers found some camera feeds openly available on the internet. A system that quietly logs where innocent people drive builds a “pattern of life”: where you live, where you worship, whose driveway you visit. In the wrong hands, that isn’t crime-fighting. It’s stalking with a badge, or without one. Notice that in every failure, the villain wasn’t a camera. It was a person who misused it, or an institution that got sloppy protecting it.

The choice isn’t really just cameras or no cameras; the choice may be regulated cameras or unregulated ones. Every database search should require a documented, case-specific reason. Every access should be logged permanently, with the searcher’s name attached, and audited regularly by someone independent of the agency doing the searching. Sharing should require local approval and a valid investigative purpose. New camera installations should require approval in open session – as one Florida county is now proposing – not quiet deals between a vendor and an agency. And misuse should mean termination and prosecution, not a memo in a file. When every access leaves a fingerprint, misuse becomes easy to prove and easy to punish. Sunlight is the safeguard.

When this comes before our county commissioners, our sheriffs and our community’s own associations and bridge authority, don’t ask whether they support the cameras. Ask: How many are there? Who can search the data? Is every search logged? Who audits the logs? What happens to someone who abuses it?

I’ve seen what surveillance looks like when it’s used to control people rather than protect them. We would love to believe it can’t happen here. But in the places where it is the daily reality, they believed the same thing – and they were wrong. Will we be the exception? Not by luck, and not by trust. Only by insisting on answers and accountability.

Technology itself is rarely bad, it is how it’s used that determines that. Catch the bad guys and protect the innocent – we can do both, but only if transparency is the rule and every abuse leaves a fingerprint.

The question is not whether we are watched. It is whether the watchers answer to us.

McConnell, a resident of Cape Haze, is a retired military officer and former Pentagon lead for weapons technology security policy. He served as associate director for International Cybersecurity Operations and directly supported Ukrainian wartime cyber ops in Kyiv. A frequent international speaker, he specializes in export controls, cybersecurity and AI with a focus on helping organizations navigate emerging technology risks.