Flock was founded in Atlanta. Thousands of cameras later, the company is getting pushback in its hometown

When Alex Wittlin makes the 6-mile drive home every day from his workplace near Atlanta, 22 eyes follow him.

On May 3, something else was following him: police cars with their sirens on.

Spotting the lights less than a mile from his home, Wittlin turned onto a side street and pulled his gleaming red Pontiac Firebird over. Then the guns came out.

“Hands up!” an officer is heard yelling in body camera video Wittlin later obtained from the suburban Dunwoody Police Department. After following orders to walk backward and drop to his knees, he was placed in handcuffs and questioned by officers from Dunwoody and the neighboring community of Doraville.

“They asked me why was I beating my wife. I was like, ‘I don’t have a wife,’” Wittlin told CNN.

Wittlin, a 26-year-old broadcast television technician, watched quietly as two officers fist-bumped and another looked inside his wallet. At that point, the tense demeanor suddenly changed.

“It’s been a big misunderstanding,” the Doraville officer who saw his identification said.

Police actually had been looking for a different man who they said was accused of domestic violence in Doraville, was possibly armed with a gun, and was last seen driving a car similar to Wittlin’s. But it was Wittlin’s car – not the suspect’s – that was spotted on a Flock license-plate-reading camera, police would say in incident reports. More than 20 license plate readers were on his route, Wittlin said he discovered from a crowdsourcing website.

Dunwoody Police Department

Wittlin was released after the Doraville officer confirmed Wittlin wasn’t the suspect, Doraville police told CNN.

Wittlin said he’d been aware Flock cameras existed, but that frightening afternoon made him realize just how much he was being watched.

“I don’t want to say it’s PTSD, but it definitely doesn’t make me feel happier about these cameras being around, seeing them everywhere I go,” Wittlin said.

Less than 20 miles from where Wittlin was stopped, another Atlanta-area resident is watching a growing backlash against that surveillance technology very closely. He is the CEO of Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company that is the country’s most prominent maker of license plate readers and producer of the camera that spotted Wittlin’s car.

“I started Flock because I believe that every single person that lives in Atlanta deserves the right to be safe,” Garrett Langley told CNN in an interview last month.

But Langley’s affection for his hometown hasn’t kept his company from drawing, even in Atlanta, the kinds of criticism over issues of privacy, mistakes and misuse that have been simmering nationwide. In Flock’s home area, the business is being increasingly met by opposition expressed in town halls and city council meetings. And in September, the mayor of Atlanta announced plans for new regulations governing the city’s extensive camera networks – including Flock cameras.

“I have the same concerns as everyone, which is I want to be safe, and I want to have privacy,” Langley said. “I want both.”

Automated license plate readers, or ALPRs, scan tag numbers and vehicle descriptions and put them in a searchable database that is frequently shared by police agencies. Users include not only law enforcement, but also homeowners associations and businesses – and advocates say the cameras can deter criminals and help track down suspects and missing people.

But concerns about mistaken identity, the right to privacy and misuse by police officers have exploded nationwide – including in metropolitan Atlanta, where Flock was created and still keeps its headquarters – in response to the cameras’ increasing use.

Kimberly White/Getty Images

Flock Safety started after Langley was frustrated with car break-ins in his neighborhood, according to a profile from the Georgia Institute of Technology, where he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering in 2009. He founded the company in 2017 with two other Georgia Tech alumni, using off-the-shelf parts and wireless tech to make a license plate reader that was less expensive than what was already on the market.

Langley says his connection to Atlanta is still critical.

“I live in Atlanta, right?” he told CNN. “I’m a citizen first and foremost. I’m a father second. And then I’m the CEO of Flock third.”

But the company’s hometown status hasn’t spared it from the current backlash, both political and physical, with automated license plate readers becoming targets for vandalism.

On a recent day at a crosswalk to the entrance of Georgia Tech’s midtown Atlanta campus, where Langley learned the skills that made Flock possible, students walking to class ignored some trashed electronics lying on the sidewalk.

A solar panel that had been cut from its perch on a utility pole lay on the ground, its glass smashed. Just above it, the powerless Flock camera it once powered still precariously hung on, despite one of the metal straps holding it up having been snapped in half.

Like many communities, Atlanta’s government doesn’t release the exact number of license plate readers it has or where they are. Although some agencies give more details through “ transparency portals ” operated by Flock, Atlanta does not participate in that service, and the city’s police did not respond to a question as to why it doesn’t.

But DeFlock , a crowdsourcing website that directs people to plot the cameras on a map after finding them, estimates the number in a 29-county area around Atlanta is more than 6,000 – both Flock and non-Flock ALPRs. Flock Safety declined to give a number for the Atlanta area, saying it is up to each of its clients to decide how much information about their Flock cameras they want to make public.

Flock says it operates more than 120,000 ALPRs across 49 states.

Public concerns about the technology got the attention of politicians in Flock’s hometown this year. Atlanta’s mayor recently asked city police to audit their ALPR searches – a process that flagged some possibly questionable uses that are currently under investigation.

The Atlanta police audit found only 0.07% of all their Flock searches from January to early September were questionable, Atlanta police said . But that still amounts to 79 inquiries now being double-checked for a possible violation of policy.

By September, Atlanta police revised their ALPR policy, including by clarifying circumstances when officers can search the Flock database, defining prohibited searches and potential criminal and administrative penalties for misuse, and mandating monthly compliance audits. A city council panel is now reviewing a citywide ALPR policy proposal , including restrictions on who can access the database.

“Technology that gives government extraordinary capabilities must come with extraordinary accountability,” Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens said in September while announcing the changes and proposals.

While Atlanta’s rule-tightening is welcomed by ALPR critics, many say it should have happened before thousands of eyes were already watching them.

“My parents grew up in mainland China, where surveillance technologies span every corner of the country, and citizens aren’t provided a say in their implementations,” Rachel Jiang, a student at Emory University, told the Atlanta City Council in September. “Growing up with this awareness has taught me the importance of laying down fundamental democratic safeguards around technology.”

In Dunwoody, just northeast of Atlanta, resident Stephen Upchurch is speaking out against the cameras, saying new regulations aren’t enough to protect privacy.

“In my opinion, the best course of action would be to cancel the contracts, remove the hardware that informs the software that’s so scary, and then we can all have a conversation about whether this type of thing is right for our communities,” Upchurch told CNN.

Critics have been literally flocking to speak publicly against the cameras, as city officials and police departments have held town halls in all of metro Atlanta’s four largest counties since August.

As the company navigates fierce critics and a wave of communities outside the Atlanta area ending their contracts , Flock has been tightening some standards on its own, nationwide.

Flock is reducing its standard data retention window from 30 days to seven, with the caveat that data can be retained longer if police attach it to a case number. The company by January 1 also will require users to accept new guardrails, including a requirement that police enter a case number to justify each search – though that function can be overridden in the case of emergencies.

Still, Flock’s co-founder says Flock is ready to accept more regulations like the city of Atlanta proposes.

“I think (Dickens) is taking a step in the right direction,” Langley said. “We need to have more accountability in the technology that police uses.”

While Flock Safety has become the most prominent provider of the technology – and the most prominent target of critics – Langley insists his company isn’t the problem, especially in a city heavily watched by cameras other than ALPRs. A 2024 analysis by the cyber security firm Comparitech said that among big US cities, Atlanta was the most surveilled per capita, with one camera accessible by law enforcement for roughly eight people. That counted not just ALPRs but standard surveillance cameras, body cameras and other devices.

“This isn’t about Flock,” Langley said. “This is about every piece of technology law enforcement uses in Atlanta, and I think that’s the exact right approach.”

Since 2021, there have been at least 85 cases in the United States – including 21 in Georgia – where law enforcement officers were accused of misusing an ALPR system to stalk people including former or current romantic interests, according to a database from the Institute for Justice , a nonprofit public interest law firm.

For example, a Milwaukee police officer resigned this year after he was accused of secretly using Flock to learn the location of his romantic partner 124 times and that partner’s ex 55 times, according to court records . He pleaded guilty to attempted misconduct in public office as part of a deal.

Kevin D. Liles/For The Washington Post/Getty Images

Stalking allegations are not the sole misuse cases that have arisen from ALPR systems. The Institute for Justice documents scores of cases in which officers are accused of misusing ALPRs in ways besides stalking, including officers giving search results to unauthorized people. Errors involving mistaken identity cases like Wittlin’s have also put Flock under fire.

Langley says he’s been disturbed by the misuse of his company’s services but believes it is not a problem confined to Flock cameras.

“Whether it’s legally criminal or clearly the intent is to do something unethical, it’s painful,” Langley said. “It’s one of the reasons why I’m proud of the tools we’re building, because I don’t believe if someone is using Flock, that’s the only thing they’re abusing.”

Flock says it is addressing data security issues through the new auditing and accountability controls it is implementing by the end of the year.

While the Atlanta area has Flock defenders especially in law enforcement, communities near the company’s headquarters also have some of its most ardent and determined critics.

In Dunwoody, Jason Hunyar has been one of the most determined activists trying to find out how Flock cameras are being used in the city, filing a flurry of open records requests.

“I just had this super unnerving feeling and wanted to find out more about what was going on,” Hunyar told CNN about filing his first request last December.

By poring through logs, he determined that Flock employees with no law enforcement responsibilities had accessed some of the city’s cameras, including ones at the community center where his baby attended daycare that were tied into the city’s monitoring network.

Jason Getz/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP

Flock employees did so for testing and demonstration – including showing the system to another law enforcement agency – as allowed in an agreement with the city, according to a Flock email that Hunyar also found in the record searches, he said.

“If me and my wife and my 3-month-old son haven’t done anything wrong, we don’t need to be tracked and recorded by the government,” he said.

Texts that Hunyar saw through his records requests also indicated Langley had a private meeting with Dunwoody Mayor Lynn Deutsch this year, he said.

In an email, Deutsch told CNN the spring meeting “focused on access to Dunwoody cameras by executives for sales demos, which was stopped.”

“Since then, city leadership and police command staff have worked with Flock on additional guardrails,” Deutsch wrote. Deutsch declined CNN’s request for an interview regarding the city’s discussions and previous agreement with Flock.

A Flock spokesperson confirmed the company agreed to stop accessing the city’s data for its own promotional purposes, although Flock still features the community prominently on its website.

In response to the community center footage discovered by Hunyar, the company said: “Although the camera was only viewed during a routine demo, we understand that this is a sensitive location for many. We have therefore determined that employees will be trained to only conduct demos in more public locations, like retail parking lots.”

Although the Atlanta area is seeing an increasing hostility to license plate readers, it is also home to one of the technology’s most prominent success stories. In 2020, 1-year-old Mateo Mantufar-Barrera was abducted at gunpoint by kidnappers who jumped out of a passing vehicle near his home in Chamblee, a city about 15 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta. He was found later that same day near the Alabama state line, unharmed but dressed as a girl to obscure his appearance, after authorities tracked a vehicle matching a description given by Mateo’s mother.

“Luckily through license plate readers, they were able to stop those two very dangerous criminals and recovered this child who had been abducted from his mother while she was walking him in a stroller,” Chamblee Police Chief Michael Dieppa told CNN.

Shaddi Abusaid/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP

Chamblee has doubled down on surveillance technology, opening a Real Time Crime Center earlier this year to monitor cameras and share information. Officers access the database of license plate readers only when they are looking for something specific as part of an investigation, and supervisors regularly check those searches, the police chief said.

“Every single one of our Flock uses … has to be audited by a supervisor at the rank of lieutenant or higher every week,” Dieppa said.

But even with safeguards, abuse is possible, and Dieppa says his own department fired an officer accused of misusing the Flock system, along with other violations of policy, two years ago.

Dieppa says he hopes that the increasing stories of officers being disciplined or fired will build trust – that people will see police are taking privacy seriously.

“I think that’s going to rein in some of the misuse that’s out there,” he said. “Hopefully not too late so it doesn’t totally kill the public’s trust that we’ve tried to build.”

Though Flock is tightening some use standards on its own, for some civil rights advocates, the changes are too little, too late.

Recent Flock changes and guardrails are “retreads of easily circumventable security measures that had previously failed,” Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, said in testimony to Congress on September 23.

Marlow’s testimony also challenged the efficacy of Flock cameras and argued that the only situations that they have been studied and found to deter crime is in relation to car thefts and property crimes.

One of the most recent studies on the effectiveness of automated license plate readers, a working paper published in August by researchers at the University of South Carolina, found that communities they studied which deployed the cameras saw an 11% drop in auto theft but no significant change in other property crime.

“Research does not show that surveillance alone, cameras alone, deter the impulsive and emotionally charged behaviors behind violent crime,” said Thaddeus Johnson, a former Memphis law enforcement officer and senior fellow at the Council on Criminal Justice.

David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Getty Images

The desire for tighter rules is starting to get bipartisan backing in Congress, where Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Republican Sen. Katie Britt of Alabama asked the Justice Department to create its own nationwide guidelines on preventing police abuse of license plate readers, saying Americans aren’t satisfied with the current lack of federal guidance.

“Yes, they want to be safe from crime, but they also want to be safe from stalking and harassment,” Warnock told reporters in September. “They shouldn’t have to choose between one of the other.”

Flock’s CEO says he’s open to nationwide rules but thinks there may not be a single set of regulations that works around the country.

“I’ve thought a lot about this, and my guess is that it will wind up being a state-by-state regulation,” Langley said.

Currently under Georgia law, misusing license plate reader data is only an aggravated misdemeanor offense.

Even as they tighten regulations, Atlanta officials have made clear that wiping out Flock in its hometown is not part of their plans.

“Cameras, ALPRs, and other cutting-edge technologies have proven to be invaluable in the Atlanta Police Department’s efforts to prevent and solve crimes,” the Atlanta Police Foundation told CNN.

As conversations continue over how to reform the use of license plate readers, critics find that one of the most difficult things to do is get away from them entirely. After his own experience being tracked on Flock cameras, Wittlin said he used DeFlock, hoping he could cut down on the number of license plate readers he passes every day.

“There is a route with only one (Flock camera), but it would turn my 15-minute trip into a 30-or 40-minute trip,” he said.

As for a path that would let him avoid the electronic eyes altogether? He couldn’t find a single one.

每天，当亚历克斯·维特林从亚特兰大附近的工作地点开车回家，全程6英里时，有22双眼睛注视着他。

5月3日，还有另一件事在跟踪他：鸣着警笛的警车。

威特林在离家不到一英里的地方发现了灯光，他拐进一条小路，把那辆闪亮的红色庞蒂亚克火鸟跑车停了下来。然后，枪就出现了。

在维特林后来从郊区邓伍迪警察局获得的执法记录仪视频中，可以听到一名警官喊道：“举起手来！”他按照命令后退并跪下后，被戴上手铐，并接受了邓伍迪和邻近的杜拉维尔社区警官的讯问。

“他们问我为什么要打老婆。我说，‘我没有老婆，’”维特林告诉 CNN。

26岁的广播电视技术员维特林静静地看着两名警官碰拳，另一名警官则翻看他的钱包。就在这时，紧张的气氛突然缓和了下来。

“这完全是一场误会，”查看过他身份证件的多拉维尔警官说道。

警方原本在寻找另一名男子，据称他被控在多拉维尔犯有家庭暴力罪，可能持有枪支，最后一次被目击时驾驶着一辆与维特林的车类似的汽车。但警方在事件报告中指出，被Flock车牌识别摄像头拍到的却是维特林的车，而不是嫌疑人的车。维特林说，他从一个众包网站上得知，他所在路线上安装了20多个车牌识别摄像头。

邓伍迪警察局

多拉维尔警方告诉 CNN，在多拉维尔警官确认维特林不是嫌疑人后，维特林被释放了。

维特林说他早就知道有 Flock 摄像头，但那个可怕的下午让他意识到自己究竟被监视了多少。

“我不想说这是创伤后应激障碍，但这些摄像头的存在，无论我走到哪里都能看到它们，绝对不会让我感到更快乐，”维特林说。

距离维特林被拦截地点不到20英里，另一位亚特兰大地区的居民正密切关注着针对这项监控技术的日益高涨的反对声浪。他是Flock Safety公司的首席执行官，这家总部位于亚特兰大的公司是美国最知名的车牌识别器制造商，也是拍下维特林车辆的摄像头生产商。

“我创办 Flock 是因为我相信，居住在亚特兰大的每一个人都应该享有安全的权利，”加勒特·兰利上个月在接受 CNN 采访时表示。

但兰利对家乡的深厚感情并未阻止他的公司，即便在亚特兰大，也因隐私、错误和滥用等问题而招致批评，这些问题在全国范围内都已酝酿。在Flock的总部所在地，该公司在市政厅和市议会会议上遭遇的反对声浪日益高涨。9月，亚特兰大市长宣布了管理该市庞大摄像头网络（包括Flock摄像头）的新规计划。

“我和大家一样，既想保证安全，也想拥有隐私，”兰利说。“我两者都想要。”

自动车牌识别系统（ALPR）扫描车牌号码和车辆描述，并将其存入一个可搜索的数据库，该数据库通常由多个警务机构共享。用户不仅包括执法部门，还包括业主协会和企业——支持者认为，这些摄像头可以震慑犯罪分子，并有助于追踪嫌疑人和失踪人员。

但随着摄像头使用量的增加，人们对身份误认、隐私权和警察滥用权力的担忧在全国范围内激增——包括 Flock 的发源地和总部所在地亚特兰大都会区。

Kimberly White/Getty Images

据佐治亚理工学院的一份简介显示，兰利 (Langley) 创办 Flock Safety 的初衷源于他对自家附近汽车盗窃案频发的不满。兰利于 2009 年毕业于佐治亚理工学院，获得电气工程学位。2017 年，他与另外两名佐治亚理工学院的校友共同创立了这家公司，利用现成的零件和无线技术制造出比市面上同类产品更便宜的车牌识别器。

兰利表示，他与亚特兰大的联系仍然至关重要。

“我住在亚特兰大，对吧？”他告诉CNN。“我首先是一名公民。其次我是一位父亲。然后我才是Flock的首席执行官。”

但该公司作为本土企业的地位并没有使其免受当前的政治和人身攻击，自动车牌识别器已成为破坏行为的目标。

最近一天，在佐治亚理工学院亚特兰大市中心校区入口的人行横道上（兰利正是在那里学习了使 Flock 成为可能的技能），一些去上课的学生对散落在人行道上的废弃电子产品视而不见。

一块从电线杆上被砍下的太阳能电池板掉在地上，玻璃破碎。就在它上方，原本由它供电的Flock摄像头仍然摇摇欲坠地挂在电线杆上，尽管支撑它的一根金属带已经断成了两截。

与许多社区一样，亚特兰大市政府并未公布其车牌识别器的确切数量或位置。尽管一些机构通过Flock运营的“透明门户”提供更多细节，但亚特兰大并未参与该服务，而市警察局也未回应为何不参与的问题。

但众包网站DeFlock（该网站引导用户在找到摄像头后将其位置标注在地图上）估计，亚特兰大周边29个县的摄像头数量超过6000个，其中包括Flock品牌的车牌自动识别摄像头（ALPR）和非Flock品牌的ALPR摄像头。Flock Safety公司拒绝透露亚特兰大地区的具体数量，称其客户可以自行决定公开多少关于其Flock摄像头的信息。

Flock公司表示，其在49个州运营着超过12万套车牌自动识别系统（ALPR）。

今年，公众对这项技术的担忧引起了弗洛克家乡政界人士的关注。亚特兰大市长最近要求市警察局对其车牌自动识别系统（ALPR）的搜索进行审计——这一过程发现了一些可能存在问题的用途，目前正在调查中。

亚特兰大警方表示，他们的审计发现，从1月到9月初，所有使用Flock搜索的记录中只有0.07%存在疑问。但这仍然意味着有79条查询记录正在接受复核，以确定是否存在违反政策的情况。

到9月份，亚特兰大警方修订了车牌自动识别系统（ALPR）政策，包括明确警员在何种情况下可以搜索Flock数据库、界定禁止搜索范围以及滥用该系统可能面临的刑事和行政处罚，并强制要求每月进行合规性审计。目前，市议会的一个小组正在审查一项全市范围的ALPR政策提案，其中包括对数据库访问权限的限制。

“赋予政府非凡能力的技术必须伴随非凡的问责制，”亚特兰大市长安德烈·狄更斯在9月份宣布这些变革和提案时表示。

虽然亚特兰大收紧车牌识别系统（ALPR）规则的做法受到了批评者的欢迎，但许多人表示，这项措施应该在成千上万双眼睛注视着他们之前就实施。

“我的父母在中国大陆长大，那里监控技术遍布全国各个角落，公民对这些技术的实施却没有发言权，”埃默里大学学生瑞秋·江（Rachel Jiang）9月份在亚特兰大市议会上说道。“在这种环境下成长，让我明白了围绕技术建立基本的民主保障措施的重要性。”

在亚特兰大东北部的邓伍迪，居民斯蒂芬·厄普彻奇公开反对这些摄像头，称新的法规不足以保护隐私。

“依我之见，最好的做法是取消合同，移除那些驱动可怕软件的硬件，然后我们就可以讨论这种事情是否适合我们的社区了，”厄普彻奇告诉 CNN。

自 8 月以来，批评人士纷纷涌向亚特兰大都会区最大的四个县，公开反对这些摄像头，与此同时，市政府官员和警察部门也举行了市政厅会议。

由于公司面临猛烈的批评，以及亚特兰大地区以外的社区纷纷终止合同，Flock 已在全国范围内自行收紧了一些标准。

Flock 将其标准数据保留期限从 30 天缩短至 7 天，但如果警方将数据与案件编号关联，则可以保留更长时间。该公司还将于 1 月 1 日前要求用户接受新的限制措施，包括要求警方输入案件编号以证明每次搜查的合理性——不过在紧急情况下，该规定可以被豁免。

不过，Flock 的联合创始人表示，Flock 已准备好接受更多像亚特兰大市提出的那种监管规定。

兰利说：“我认为（狄更斯）正在朝着正确的方向迈出一步。我们需要加强对警方使用技术的问责制。”

尽管Flock Safety已成为这项技术最知名的供应商，同时也成为批评者最主要的攻击目标，但兰利坚称他的公司并非问题所在，尤其是在亚特兰大这样一个除了车牌自动识别系统（ALPR）之外，其他监控摄像头也遍布全城的城市。网络安全公司Comparitech在2024年的一项分析中指出，在美国各大城市中，亚特兰大的人均监控覆盖率最高，平均每八个人就拥有一个可供执法部门使用的摄像头。这不仅包括车牌自动识别系统，还包括普通监控摄像头、执法记录仪和其他设备。

兰利说：“这并非关乎Flock软件本身，而是关乎亚特兰大执法部门使用的所有技术，我认为这才是正确的做法。”

据非营利性公益律师事务所“司法研究所”的数据库显示，自 2021 年以来，美国至少发生了 85 起案件（其中 21 起发生在佐治亚州），执法人员被指控滥用车牌自动识别系统跟踪他人，包括前任或现任的恋爱对象。

例如，据法庭记录显示，今年密尔沃基一名警官因被指控秘密使用Flock软件124次查询其伴侣的位置，并55次查询其伴侣前任的位置而辞职。作为认罪协议的一部分，他承认犯有公职人员渎职未遂罪。

Kevin D. Liles/《华盛顿邮报》/Getty Images

跟踪骚扰指控并非车牌自动识别系统（ALPR）被滥用的唯一案例。司法研究所记录了大量案件，其中警员被指控以除跟踪骚扰以外的其他方式滥用ALPR系统，包括将搜查结果透露给未经授权的人员。像维特林这样的身份误认案件也让弗洛克公司饱受诟病。

Langley表示，他对公司服务被滥用感到不安，但他认为这并非Flock摄像机独有的问题。

“无论这是否构成法律上的犯罪，或者其意图显然是不道德的，都令人痛心，”兰利说。“这也是我为我们正在开发的工具感到自豪的原因之一，因为我不认为有人在使用Flock，就意味着他们滥用的仅仅是Flock本身。”

Flock 表示，它正在通过新的审计和问责控制措施来解决数据安全问题，这些措施将在年底前实施。

虽然亚特兰大地区，尤其是执法部门，有不少 Flock 的支持者，但该公司总部附近的社区也有一些最热情、最坚定的批评者。

在邓伍迪，杰森·亨亚尔是调查 Flock 摄像头在该市使用情况的最坚定的活动家之一，他提交了一系列公开记录请求。

“我当时有一种非常不安的感觉，想了解更多情况，”Hunyar在接受CNN采访时谈到他去年12月提交的第一份申请时说道。

通过仔细查看日志，他发现一些没有执法职责的 Flock 员工访问了该市的一些摄像头，包括他孩子就读的日托中心所在的社区中心的摄像头，这些摄像头与该市的监控网络相连。

Jason Getz/Atlanta Journal-Constitution/AP

Hunyar在记录搜索中还发现了一封Flock的电子邮件，邮件中提到，Flock的员工这样做是为了进行测试和演示——包括向另一个执法机构展示该系统——这是与市政府达成的协议所允许的。

他说：“如果我和我的妻子以及我3个月大的儿子没有做错任何事，我们就不需要被政府跟踪和记录。”

胡尼亚尔表示，他通过查阅记录获得的短信还显示，兰利今年曾与邓伍迪市长林恩·德意志进行过一次私人会面。

Deutsch 在一封电子邮件中告诉 CNN，春季会议“重点讨论了高管们能否使用 Dunwoody 摄像机进行销售演示，但后来被叫停了”。

“自那以后，市领导和警方指挥人员就加强防护措施与弗洛克公司展开了合作，”德意志写道。德意志拒绝了CNN就市政府与弗洛克公司之前的讨论和协议提出的采访请求。

Flock 的一位发言人证实，该公司已同意停止出于自身推广目的访问该市的数据，但 Flock 仍在其网站上显著位置展示该社区。

针对Hunyar发现的社区中心监控录像，该公司回应称：“虽然摄像头只是在例行演示期间被查看，但我们理解这对于许多人来说是一个敏感地点。因此，我们决定对员工进行培训，要求他们只在更公共的场所进行演示，例如零售停车场。”

尽管亚特兰大地区对车牌识别技术的敌意日益加剧，但这里也诞生了这项技术最引人注目的成功案例之一。2020年，一岁的马特奥·曼图法尔-巴雷拉（Mateo Mantufar-Barrera）在亚特兰大市中心东北约15英里（24公里）的钱布利（Chamblee）家中附近被持枪绑架。绑匪从一辆路过的车上跳下来。当天晚些时候，警方根据马特奥母亲提供的描述，追踪到一辆与嫌疑车辆相符的车辆，并在阿拉巴马州州界附近找到了他。马特奥安然无恙，但为了掩盖自己的真实身份，他被装扮成女孩。

“幸运的是，通过车牌识别器，他们能够阻止这两名非常危险的罪犯，并找回这名被从母亲身边绑架的孩子，当时他的母亲正推着婴儿车带他散步，”钱布利警察局长迈克尔·迪帕告诉 CNN。

沙迪·阿布赛德/亚特兰大宪法报/美联社

钱布利市加大了对监控技术的投入，今年早些时候开设了实时犯罪中心，用于监控摄像头并共享信息。警长表示，警员只有在调查特定线索时才会访问车牌识别数据库，而且主管会定期检查这些搜索记录。

“我们 Flock 使用的每一个设备……都必须每周由一名中尉或更高级别的管理人员进行审核，”迪耶帕说。

但即使有安全措施，滥用行为仍然可能发生。迪耶帕表示，两年前，他所在的部门解雇了一名被指控滥用 Flock 系统以及其他违反政策行为的警官。

迪耶帕表示，他希望越来越多的警员受到纪律处分或被解雇的事件能够建立信任——让人们看到警方正在认真对待隐私问题。

“我认为这将有助于遏制一些滥用行为，”他说。“希望为时不晚，以免彻底摧毁我们努力建立起来的公众信任。”

尽管 Flock 自行收紧了一些使用标准，但对于一些民权倡导者来说，这些改变太少也太迟了。

美国公民自由联盟高级政策顾问查德·马洛在 9 月 23 日向国会作证时表示，最近针对 Flock 的变更和防护措施是“对以前失败的、很容易被规避的安全措施的重新包装”。

马洛的证词也对 Flock 摄像头的有效性提出了质疑，并指出，经研究发现，Flock 摄像头唯一能起到威慑犯罪作用的情况是汽车盗窃和财产犯罪。

南卡罗来纳大学的研究人员在 8 月份发表的一篇关于自动车牌识别器有效性的最新研究论文发现，他们研究的部署了摄像头的社区汽车盗窃案下降了 11%，但其他财产犯罪没有明显变化。

“研究表明，单靠监控摄像头并不能阻止暴力犯罪背后冲动和情绪化的行为，”前孟菲斯执法人员、刑事司法委员会高级研究员萨迪厄斯·约翰逊说。

David Carson/St. Louis Post-Dispatch/Getty Images

在国会，两党开始支持加强监管的呼声日益高涨。佐治亚州民主党参议员拉斐尔·沃诺克和阿拉巴马州共和党参议员凯蒂·布里特要求司法部制定全国性的指导方针，以防止警察滥用车牌识别器。他们表示，美国民众对目前缺乏联邦指导感到不满。

“是的，他们希望免受犯罪侵害，但也希望免受跟踪和骚扰，”沃诺克在9月份告诉记者。“他们不应该被迫在两者之间做出选择。”

Flock 的首席执行官表示，他对全国性的规则持开放态度，但他认为可能没有一套适用于全国的统一法规。

“我仔细考虑过这个问题，我的猜测是，最终会成为各州自行制定的法规，”兰利说。

根据佐治亚州现行法律，滥用车牌识别数据仅属于加重轻罪。

即使亚特兰大官员收紧了监管，但他们也明确表示，在他们的家乡消灭 Flock 组织并不在他们的计划之内。

亚特兰大警察基金会告诉 CNN：“摄像头、车牌自动识别系统和其他尖端技术已被证明对亚特兰大警察局预防和侦破犯罪的工作具有不可估量的价值。”

关于如何改革车牌识别系统的讨论仍在继续，批评人士认为，最难的事情之一就是彻底摆脱它们。维特林在亲身经历过被Flock摄像头跟踪的痛苦后，表示他改用了DeFlock系统，希望能够减少每天经过的车牌识别系统的数量。

“有一条路线只需要一个（Flock 摄像头），但这会将我原本 15 分钟的行程变成 30 或 40 分钟的行程，”他说。

至于能让他完全避开电子监控的路径？他一条也找不到。