LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
LAPD lets contract with surveillance giant Flock expire
洛杉矶警察局终止与监控巨头 Flock 的合同
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) is reportedly ending its deal with Flock Safety, a surveillance company that helps law enforcement track vehicles using thousands of its license plate cameras placed across the United States. A senior LAPD official told news outlets, first reported by ABC7 and the Los Angeles Times, that the police department would allow its three-year contract with Flock to expire when it ends on Saturday. 据报道，洛杉矶警察局（LAPD）正在终止与监控公司 Flock Safety 的合作。Flock Safety 通过在美国各地部署的数千个车牌识别摄像头，协助执法部门追踪车辆。据 ABC7 和《洛杉矶时报》率先报道，一位洛杉矶警察局高级官员向媒体透露，该局将让其与 Flock 为期三年的合同在周六到期后不再续签。
The department cited “serious concerns” around civil liberties and privacy. Flock’s cameras are operated by the Atlanta, Georgia-based company and not the LAPD. “This contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras,” LAPD’s chief information officer Dean Gialamas was quoted as saying. “The LAPD had to make a difficult decision, in this case discontinuing using Flock services until we can get those data, privacy, security and sharing concerns ironed out through a contractual relationship.” 该局表示，此举是出于对公民自由和隐私的“严重关切”。Flock 的摄像头由这家总部位于佐治亚州亚特兰大的公司运营，而非洛杉矶警察局。洛杉矶警察局首席信息官迪恩·贾拉马斯（Dean Gialamas）表示：“这份合同不再续签，是因为我们对公民自由和民权问题，特别是隐私以及从这些摄像头收集的数据存在严重关切。洛杉矶警察局不得不做出一个艰难的决定，即在通过合同关系解决这些数据、隐私、安全和共享问题之前，停止使用 Flock 的服务。”
A spokesperson for the LAPD did not respond to a request for comment from TechCrunch over the weekend, and it’s unclear if Flock’s cameras will continue recording in absence of an active contract. According to ABC7, the police department is seeking new language in its contract addressing privacy and data storage concerns. As the third-largest police department in the U.S., the LAPD is one of Flock’s largest government customers to date. 洛杉矶警察局发言人在周末未回应 TechCrunch 的置评请求，目前尚不清楚在没有有效合同的情况下，Flock 的摄像头是否会继续录像。据 ABC7 报道，该警察局正在寻求在合同中加入针对隐私和数据存储问题的新条款。作为美国第三大警察局，洛杉矶警察局是 Flock 迄今为止最大的政府客户之一。
Several major U.S. cities have also stopped working with Flock, including Mountain View, California and South Portland, Maine, citing privacy worries and concerns that federal immigration officials used the cameras to track people in violation of their local laws governing their sanctuary city policies. The contract expiry caught the surveillance company by “surprise,” said Flock spokesperson Holly Beilin in an email to TechCrunch. Flock said it was confident that the company could “clear up the current misconceptions” that led to the contract’s end. Flock would not say which specific misconceptions it was referring to. 美国多个主要城市也已停止与 Flock 合作，包括加利福尼亚州山景城和缅因州南波特兰市。这些城市给出的理由是隐私担忧，以及担心联邦移民官员利用这些摄像头追踪民众，从而违反了当地关于“庇护城市”政策的法律。Flock 发言人霍莉·贝林（Holly Beilin）在给 TechCrunch 的电子邮件中表示，合同到期让这家监控公司感到“意外”。Flock 表示，有信心“消除导致合同终止的当前误解”，但并未说明具体是指哪些误解。
Flock has a network of at least 80,000 cameras around the U.S. that scan license plates and allow police and federal agencies to track vehicles. The company has faced heavy backlash from local communities that have approved and then reneged on their deals with Flock over concerns with privacy and surveillance. Some locals have taken matters into their own hands by dismantling Flock cameras and covering them with trash bags, even as some communities found that Flock reinstalled cameras without permission from local authorities. Flock 在美国拥有至少 8 万个摄像头网络，用于扫描车牌并允许警察和联邦机构追踪车辆。该公司面临着来自当地社区的强烈抵制，一些社区在批准与 Flock 的协议后，因隐私和监控担忧而反悔。一些当地居民甚至采取了自行拆除 Flock 摄像头或用垃圾袋遮盖的行动，尽管一些社区发现 Flock 在未经当地政府许可的情况下重新安装了摄像头。
Researchers have identified an uptick in documented cases of motorists being pulled over, detained, and held at gunpoint by police, or jailed, due to false positives and errors with license plate readers. Last week, a journalist with car reviews and news website The Drive detailed how he was tracked for days and later boxed-in by police after a Flock camera mistakenly flagged the license plate of the on-loan review unit he was driving as stolen. 研究人员发现，由于车牌识别器的误报和错误，导致驾驶员被警察拦截、拘留、持枪指控甚至入狱的记录案例有所增加。上周，汽车评论与新闻网站 The Drive 的一名记者详细描述了他如何被追踪数日，随后被警察围堵的经历——起因是 Flock 摄像头错误地将他驾驶的借用评测车辆的车牌标记为被盗车辆。
Flock has also faced scrutiny following several security lapses that have exposed cameras and data, which in one case allowed independent新闻 outlet 404 Media to watch themselves live on publicly exposed Flock cameras. Lawmakers have also urged federal consumer authorities to investigate Flock for failing to implement measures that would prevent hackers and spies from gaining access to its security cameras, warning that many of the police user logins are not protected with multi-factor authentication. 404 Media also reported that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration used a local police officer’s password without their knowledge to search for a suspect accused of an immigration violation. Flock 还因多次安全漏洞导致摄像头和数据泄露而面临审查。其中一个案例中，独立新闻媒体 404 Media 甚至能在公开暴露的 Flock 摄像头上实时看到他们自己。立法者还敦促联邦消费者监管机构调查 Flock，指责其未能采取措施防止黑客和间谍访问其安全摄像头，并警告称许多警察用户登录名未受到多因素身份验证的保护。404 Media 还报道称，美国缉毒局在未经当地警官知情的情况下，使用了其密码来搜索一名被控违反移民法的嫌疑人。