Flock Credibility Lost as It Repeatedly Lies to City Councils, Police, & Public

Flock 安全公司信誉扫地：屡次向市议会、警方及公众撒谎

The ACLU documents how an automatic license plate reader company has lied about its operations, signaling a need for reputable governments to avoid working with Flock Safety. 美国公民自由联盟（ACLU）记录了一家自动车牌识别（ALPR）公司如何对其运营情况撒谎，这表明有声望的政府机构应当避免与 Flock Safety 合作。

During a city council meeting in a suburb of Wisconsin in April, the city of Oshkosh considered whether it should approve a contract to use automatic license plate readers (ALPR) from Flock Safety, a prominent company that provides ALPRs to law enforcement agencies across the country. 今年 4 月，在威斯康星州的一个郊区城市奥什科什（Oshkosh）举行的一次市议会会议上，该市讨论是否批准一份合同，使用来自 Flock Safety 的自动车牌识别系统（ALPR）。Flock Safety 是一家为全国执法机构提供 ALPR 设备的知名公司。

During the meeting, one city council member asked Flock if the company’s ALPR system created heat maps that could reveal where a particular vehicle had driven over a period of time. Flock’s chief information security officer, who was in attendance, told the council that Flock’s system did not “create a pattern or heat map of an individual’s movement” through the tracking of their vehicles. 会议期间，一位市议员询问 Flock，该公司的 ALPR 系统是否会生成热力图，以揭示特定车辆在一段时间内的行驶轨迹。出席会议的 Flock 首席信息安全官告诉议会，Flock 的系统不会通过追踪车辆来“创建个人移动的模式或热力图”。

At the end of that meeting, the Oshkosh City Council approved a contract with Flock. The very next morning, the city learned that Flock had lied. Later that day, the city council reconvened to discuss what it had learned. 会议结束时，奥什科什市议会批准了与 Flock 的合同。然而就在第二天早上，该市获悉 Flock 撒了谎。当天晚些时候，市议会重新召开会议，讨论所了解到的情况。

Confronting Flock, Oshkosh Deputy Mayor Joe Stephenson said “I don’t know how this body can govern if someone tells untruths, mistruths, exaggerated truths. I don’t know how I can make a decision or discern what’s right or what’s wrong, or even the capabilities of this system if you lie to me.” 奥什科什副市长乔·斯蒂芬森（Joe Stephenson）在质问 Flock 时表示：“如果有人说谎、误导或夸大事实，我不知道这个机构该如何治理。如果你对我撒谎，我不知道该如何做出决定，也无法辨别是非，甚至无法了解该系统的真实功能。”

“Shame on them,” Oshkosh Mayor Matt Mugerauer added. “All I’m saying is if you give bad information, then I just don’t want to work with you.” 奥什科什市长马特·穆格劳尔（Matt Mugerauer）补充道：“真为他们感到羞耻。我只想说，如果你提供虚假信息，那我就不想与你合作。”

Ultimately, the Oshkosh City Council voted to immediately revoke its approval, thereby setting a record for the shortest time between a city approving and cancelling a Flock contract: one day. 最终，奥什科什市议会投票决定立即撤销批准，从而创下了城市批准并取消 Flock 合同的最短时间记录：仅一天。

Flock later admitted that its ALPR system does indeed produce a “heat map” that shows where “point-in-time images have been captured of a vehicle” for up to an entire month. However, the company chose to respond to the revocation of its contract by attacking the City of Oshkosh and its city council, complaining that Flock had “not [been] afforded the opportunity” to explain its lie after being caught. Flock 后来承认，其 ALPR 系统确实会生成“热力图”，显示车辆在长达一个月内“被捕捉到即时图像”的位置。然而，该公司在回应合同撤销时，却选择攻击奥什科什市及其市议会，抱怨 Flock 在被揭穿后“没有获得机会”来解释其谎言。

Flock also sought to trivialize its factually inaccurate statement by categorizing it as “one small misconception” and referring to the dispute over the system’s heat map tracking feature as “a minor nuance.” Flock 还试图将其事实错误的陈述轻描淡写，将其归类为“一个小误解”，并将关于系统热力图追踪功能的争议称为“一个微小的细微差别”。

What happened in Oshkosh was not an isolated incident. Rather, it reflects a pattern of Flock regularly misleading or even lying about its business practices, safety record, commitment to privacy, and efforts to protect vulnerable populations. 发生在奥什科什的事情并非孤立事件。相反，这反映了 Flock 在其商业行为、安全记录、隐私承诺以及保护弱势群体的努力方面，经常误导甚至撒谎的模式。

And as was the case in Oshkosh, Flock’s lies are not just directed at the general public; they often specifically target Flock’s potential government customers. The urgent takeaway for government officials and police departments is that they should be extremely hesitant to believe anything Flock’s tells them about its company, its products, or its commitment to safety and privacy. 正如在奥什科什的情况一样，Flock 的谎言不仅针对公众，往往还专门针对其潜在的政府客户。政府官员和警察部门需要紧急意识到的是，对于 Flock 关于其公司、产品或对安全与隐私承诺的任何说法，都应保持极高的警惕。

Flock’s Pattern of Lies

Flock 的谎言模式

This is far from the first time Flock has misled the public and elected officials. The company has demonstrated a pattern of treating legitimate operational questions and concerns not as problems to be solved, but rather as mere public relations issues. 这绝非 Flock 第一次误导公众和民选官员。该公司表现出一种模式，即不将合理的运营问题和担忧视为需要解决的问题，而仅仅将其视为公关问题。

In Colorado, Loveland Police Chief Tim Doran raised concern that federal agents were accessing the town’s ALPR data. Flock responded by telling the chief that federal agencies no longer had access to Loveland’s license plate readers, and had their CEO reiterate to the press that federal data sharing was a non-issue because Flock had no federal contracts. 在科罗拉多州，拉夫兰（Loveland）警察局长蒂姆·多兰（Tim Doran）曾担心联邦特工正在访问该镇的 ALPR 数据。Flock 回应称，联邦机构已无法访问拉夫兰的车牌识别系统，并让其首席执行官向媒体重申，联邦数据共享不是问题，因为 Flock 没有联邦合同。

After contradictory information later came to light, the company was forced to admit that it did, in fact, have contracts with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Homeland Security (DHS) for pilot projects that gave those agencies direct access to license data. “We clearly communicated poorly,” Flock’s CEO said, acknowledging that Flock’s “public statements inadvertently provided inaccurate information.” 在后来出现相互矛盾的信息后，该公司被迫承认，它实际上与美国海关及边境保卫局（CBP）和国土安全部（DHS）签订了试点项目合同，使这些机构能够直接访问车牌数据。“我们显然沟通不力，”Flock 的首席执行官表示，承认 Flock 的“公开声明无意中提供了不准确的信息”。

Last year, reports revealed that, even in the absence of federal contracts, cooperating police officers and departments were regularly sharing Flock ALPR data and search results with immigration agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP. 去年，有报道披露，即使在没有联邦合同的情况下，合作的警官和部门也经常与美国移民及海关执法局（ICE）和 CBP 等移民机构共享 Flock 的 ALPR 数据和搜索结果。

The company responded to the reports with a disingenuous blog entitled “Does Flock Share Data With ICE? No. Flock Does Not Work With ICE.” In its blog, the company pushed back by asserting that “ICE does not have direct access to Flock cameras, systems, or data” and that license data is “owned and controlled by the customer.” 该公司以一篇虚伪的博客文章回应了这些报道，标题为《Flock 是否与 ICE 共享数据？不。Flock 不与 ICE 合作》。在博客中，该公司反驳称“ICE 无法直接访问 Flock 的摄像头、系统或数据”，并声称车牌数据“由客户拥有和控制”。

Flock knew that, despite not being a customer, ICE had indirect access to Flock’s data and system through the company’s state and local law enforcement customers. The issue was never about having direct access to Flock’s data, it was about having any access to the data. But rather than address these data security and control issues on their merits, Flock released a misleading blog which read… Flock 心知肚明，尽管 ICE 不是其客户，但通过该公司州和地方执法部门的客户，ICE 可以间接访问 Flock 的数据和系统。问题的关键从来不是能否“直接”访问 Flock 的数据，而是能否以任何方式访问这些数据。然而，Flock 没有从本质上解决这些数据安全和控制问题，而是发布了一篇误导性的博客，内容写道……