Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee (FWC) police are performing dozens of license plate lookups on Flock cameras for Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in keeping with public data that present particulars of the searches.
The follow highlights how ICE, which doesn’t have a contract with Flock, continues to get entry to Flock’s AI-powered license plate scanning cameras by native and state police, and infrequently in methods which can be uncommon, sudden, and troublesome for the general public to trace or maintain the company accountable for. On this case, ICE has gained entry to Flock information by a legislation enforcement company that’s nominally alleged to be centered on conservation, defending endangered species, and investigating boating and maritime points. 404 Media initially reported on how ICE was getting side-door entry to Flock information through native police in Might 2025.
That reporting led to a collection of reforms and safeguards which can be alleged to make it simpler for legislation enforcement companies that use Flock to decide out of getting their surveillance digicam information handed to federal companies; a weblog submit by Flock referred to as “Does Flock Share Knowledge With ICE?” now states plainly “No. Flock doesn’t work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or some other sub-agency of the Division of Homeland Safety.” However in follow, the general public data present that as of the top of January (the latest information out there) 1000’s of companies across the nation had been sharing their digicam information with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee police, which was then recurrently performing lookups for ICE.
Flock cameras regularly scan the license plate, model, and colour of each automobile that drives by. Legislation enforcement can then search the Flock system to see the place else a automobile has travelled. Crucially, Flock maintains a nationwide lookup instrument the place companies in a single state can search information generated by cameras in one other, even when these cameras are on the opposite aspect of the nation. Legislation enforcement usually do that with out a warrant.
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A January Flock community audit for Ball State College, a public college in Indiana that has a contract with Flock, reveals that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee police carried out 38 completely different Flock searches for causes that had been listed as “immigration.”
Flock community audits are spreadsheets which have a separate entry for every time a police division’s Flock information is queried by one other company. Every entry comprises details about what number of completely different networks and cameras had been searched, the time of the search, and the acknowledged “purpose” for the search. The searches carried out by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee had causes that ranged from “Immigration (civil/administrative) – I.C.E.” to “Immigration (felony) – Normal Felony Investigation” to “Immigration (felony) – I.C.E.” The community audit indicated that greater than 5,000 completely different Flock networks had been searched in every case, indicating that, as of January, 1000’s of cities and cities had been nonetheless sharing information with companies that in the end work with ICE regardless of new safeguards put in place by Flock.
“This highlights once you do mass surveillance, you actually can’t management the info,” Jay Stanley, a senior analyst with the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) Speech, Privateness, and Expertise Mission, instructed 404 Media. “I doubt there have been many cities that had been debating the Florida Fish and Wildlife Companies doing searches for ICE after they had been speaking about whether or not they need to get Flock. It reveals these searches can come from actually any route.”
The data in query had been obtained from Ball State College by the journalist David Covucci, who covers faculty sports activities for his web site FOIABall. Covucci shared the paperwork with 404 Media. The paperwork confirmed that, past the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee police, the Texas Division of Public Security, Grant County Indiana Sheriff’s Workplace, Lake County Indiana police, Sarasota County Florida police, Brevard County Florida Sheriff’s Workplace, Nebraska State Patrol, Tennessee Freeway Patrol, Fort Pierce Florida Police Division, and Mississippi Division of Public Security had all carried out immigration-related Flock searches in January. Because of this all of those companies in the end searched Flock cameras on Ball State’s campus (and 1000’s of others throughout the nation) for immigration-related functions.
Police with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee are capable of do these lookups for ICE as a result of in August, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis enrolled practically 800 of its officers in 287(g), a Division of Homeland Safety (DHS) program that provides state and native police sure immigration enforcement powers. DeSantis has primarily turned many state police into an extension of ICE: “Florida is setting the instance for states in combating unlawful immigration and dealing with the Trump Administration to revive the rule of legislation,” DeSantis stated in a press launch saying the transfer. “By permitting our state brokers and legislation enforcement officers to be skilled and accredited by ICE, Florida will now have extra enforcement personnel deputized to help federal companions. Meaning deportations could be carried out extra effectively, making our communities safer as unlawful aliens are eliminated.”
The ACLU printed a report in February about how the enlargement of the 287(g) program has vastly elevated the Trump administration’s deportation pressure. “Whereas in latest months the nation’s consideration has rightly centered on the violence and abuse perpetrated by ICE and Border Patrol brokers in locations like Minneapolis, in Florida and across the nation, communities are experiencing one other form of terror: Their very own legislation enforcement companies, working hand in glove with the Trump administration, are the perpetrators of blatant racial profiling, harassment, and even violence,” the report says.
The report particularly notes that “Florida seems to have devoted extra state and native legislation enforcement assets to immigration enforcement than some other state, leading to quite a few instances of harassment and profiling of U.S. residents and noncitizens alike, a local weather of maximum concern in communities, and experiences of significant civil rights violations.”
The ACLU’s Stanley stated that the enlargement of 287(g) has made plenty of the debates that communities are having about federal entry to Flock information really feel outdated, as a result of they could fail to grapple with the truth that native police across the nation are actually doing work on behalf of federal authorities. “A whole lot of the main target in communities and elsewhere the place Flock is controversial have centered on this query of ‘Will the feds be capable to entry this information?,’” Stanley stated. “It is a reminder that the sharp enlargement of 287(g) has made that nearly moot as a result of plenty of native authorities are working so intently with ICE.”
Flock has in latest months tried to distance itself from ICE, partly with the “Does Flock Share Knowledge With ICE?” weblog submit and with quite a few media appearances and LinkedIn posts by its executives. Flock has repeatedly leaned on the concept its clients personal and management their information, and that Flock has made quite a few adjustments to adjust to a number of states’ legal guidelines that forbid using license plate reader information for immigration or abortion enforcement, or which ban the switch of license plate digicam information out of the state altogether.
“As we have shared along with your group many occasions, all our clients personal their information and select use it, supplied it complies with native legal guidelines and statutes,” a spokesperson for Flock instructed 404 Media. “In cities and states the place cooperating with federal immigration is towards the legislation, we block that from occurring throughout the product itself. In states the place cooperation is authorized, clients and their native values decide how they select to implement the legislation.”
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark. A spokesperson for Gov. DeSantis’s workplace, nonetheless, instructed 404 Media that the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Fee continues to work with ICE. “Please notice that it’s NOT out of the strange for FWC to work alongside ICE as they’ve a 287 (g) settlement with them-as do all State of Florida legislation enforcement companies,” they stated.
404 Media, different reporters, and transparency advocates have been reporting on using Flock cameras primarily by acquiring community audits by public data requests. However the utility of these community audits is quickly deteriorating; as we reported earlier this 12 months, Flock has made adjustments to its community audits that makes every particular person entry extra imprecise, and authorities have warned police to be “as imprecise as permissible” in regards to the the reason why they’re utilizing Flock. Many Flock search causes merely say “investigation” or one other blanket time period, making it not possible to know why the system was actually used. Due to this variation, it could turn into more durable to trace which companies are working with ICE, and the way usually it’s occurring.
“I believe all people utilizing Flock is aware of you may get away with placing one thing like a generic descriptor that gained’t tip off communities to what’s occurring,” Stanley stated. “This window of visibility is closing, even this very restricted flawed, manipulable window of visibility is closing.”
Concerning the writer
Jason is a cofounder of 404 Media. He was beforehand the editor-in-chief of Motherboard. He loves the Freedom of Data Act and browsing.
