Residents Challenge AI Surveillance Expansion in Longmont, Colorado

Residents in Longmont, Colorado, are voicing strong opposition to the expansion of AI surveillance cameras operated by the company Flock Safety. During a four-hour city council meeting on Tuesday, community members raised significant concerns about privacy and transparency regarding the use of the company’s technology, which includes at least 23 AI-powered cameras and license plate readers across the city.

According to local publication Yellowscene, nearly every seat was filled at the council meeting, with approximately 90 percent of attendees expressing their dissatisfaction with the city’s contract with Flock. Andrew Gentry, a software engineer and Longmont resident, questioned the lack of assurances regarding predictive analytics and facial recognition on Flock’s website. “Longmont’s website states the community’s safety cameras do not perform predictive analytics or facial recognition,” he stated. “That same assurance is absent from the Flock page, leaving me to believe that this privacy standard may have been quietly discarded with Flock’s adoption.”

Gentry further criticized Flock’s data retention policy, which he noted has doubled the retention period from 14 days to 30 days, suggesting a potential erosion of privacy standards. Following these discussions, the city council voted decisively, with a 5-1 outcome, to reject any future expansion of its contract with Flock Safety. While the fate of the existing cameras remains uncertain, this decision marks a notable victory for critics of surveillance technology in the Boulder area.

The opposition in Longmont reflects a broader trend across the United States, where communities and activists are increasingly rising against AI surveillance measures. Many of these cameras have been installed at the request of municipal police departments, sparking heated debates over their implications. The company’s primary offering, Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR), has faced scrutiny following multiple instances of false positives generated by its untested AI recognition system.

Incidents involving the misuse of Flock’s technology further heighten concerns. For instance, the Atlanta police chief was reported to have used Flock’s ALPR system to stalk individuals, while a Texas police officer utilized data from 83,000 ALPRs to track a woman suspected of seeking an out-of-state abortion.

In other cities, such as Yakima, Washington, Cleveland, Ohio, and Eugene, Oregon, residents have organized against the installation of these cameras, which operate as nodes within an interconnected surveillance network. Some activists have taken to the streets to protest, often becoming potential subjects of surveillance themselves, while others have resorted to more direct actions. A recent incident in Suffolk, Virginia, involved a man accused of using vice grips to dismantle 13 Flock cameras.

Meanwhile, an open-source initiative known as DeFlock aims to crowdsource information about ALPR installations nationwide. Although Flock Safety has issued a cease and desist order to the project’s organizer, he continues to operate with support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an organization dedicated to defending civil liberties in the digital world.

As communities across the United States confront the implications of AI surveillance, the range of responses suggests a growing resistance to these technologies. The outcomes of these actions could shape the future landscape of privacy rights and surveillance practices in the country.