Flock cameras are an endangered technology in Toledo, Ohio, with a sixth camera now vandalized in the past two months in a city with a quarter million residents.
The latest Flock camera put out of service in an act of vandalism took place on the city’s west end, according to authorities and local news reports.
Toledo police are investigating after the pole holding up a camera and solar panel appears to have been cleanly cut near the ground, local station WTOL reported.
The half dozen cameras put out of service in the past 60 days include one that was “pushed to the ground” over Labor Day weekend and three others that were knocked down in mid-August on the city’s east side, along with others in Oregon, a Toledo suburb, police said.
According to WTOL:
Toledo police operates over 100 standard license-plate readers (LPR’s). According to Toledo police, the system records information such as a vehicle’s license plate, characteristics, location, and the date and time the vehicle was captured. Police can then search the information during criminal investigations. Police said the system does not use facial recognition and is not designed to track people as they walk past a camera.
Flock cameras have become a hot topic and a bone of political contention in states and municipalities across the U.S.
Among the Flock issues Breitbart News has reported:
• Columbus, Ohio suspended its Flock camera program during an investigation after an officer was accused of using the license plate reader to search for the same plate 270 times without supplying any specific reason.
• Florida’s transportation department revoked local police departments’ authority to install license plate reader cameras on state highways earlier this month, part of a growing national backlash against surveillance camera makers.
• Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered all state agencies to stop funding local law enforcement Flock camera purchases and operations. Many Texas legislators expressed concern about the excessive use of electronic surveillance through the AI-driven Flock system.
Despite their success in solving many crimes, including the kidnapping of children, surveillance camera systems have come under massive scrutiny over concerns about civil liberty abuses.
Privacy advocates have launched the website DeFlock.org, an open source website that uses data provided by volunteers to track the number and locations of cameras and provides a map of camera locations in cities across the U.S.
That map shows about 350 cameras currently in use in Toledo and adjoining suburbs.
Breitbart contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of the Los Angeles crime novel Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
