Click here for updates on this story
LUMPKIN COUNTY, Georgia (WUPA) — A Georgia sheriff is now offering a $1,000 reward after he said someone damaged a Flock Safety camera in a park.
“So, I hope you’re happy with this. It was to keep our kids safe. That’s what this is about and you went and done this,” said Sheriff Jarrard of Lumpkin County.
Sheriff Jarrard said the cameras were placed in the park to catch sex offenders.
“Well, this is proof we had to look for this and find it in the woods. It’s not watching you,” said Sheriff Jarrard.
Wednesday, protesters took to a sidewalk near a Flock Safety convention in Atlanta.
“Flock is a surveillance system which has taken over Atlanta, and we’re protesting because we want to protect people’s right to privacy,” said Kamau Franklin, founder of Community Movement Builders.
Flock Safety cameras are automated license plate readers. They also include vehicle-tracking systems used by police, neighborhoods, and businesses across the United States. They capture vehicle plates, make, model, and color, as well as unique features like bumper stickers, storing the searchable data in a shared cloud network.
Franklin said he does not believe there is a safe way to use Flock Safety cameras.
“I say the police are always going to come up with excuses for why they want to conduct mass surveillance on people. I think all the information, all the data shows that 99.5% of the people who Flock is surveilling have not committed any crime whatsoever,” said Franklin.
Recent reports of law enforcement officers misusing license plate reader systems have added another layer to the growing debate.
“It’s not the technology. The denominator is us, when mistakes are made with facial recognition or license plate readers. It’s not the technology; it’s us. It provides the output. It doesn’t know the answer or the action,” said Dr. Thaddeus Johnson, a professor in Georgia State University’s criminal justice department.
Flock Safety cameras have become a controversial issue in Georgia communities as dozens of police officers have been fired and, in some cases, arrested over the past several months for allegedly abusing license plate reader technology for non-law enforcement purposes.
CBS News Atlanta has reported on multiple officers facing punishment following internal audits of Flock’s database that flagged improper searches. Officers have been accused of using the technology to track people in their families and personal lives rather than for legitimate law enforcement purposes.
Amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, scrutiny of the surveillance technology has also expanded to questions about whether federal immigration authorities can ultimately access information collected by local law enforcement.
The University of Washington Center for Human Rights found through an analysis of Flock Safety cameras in Washington state that automated license plate reader data collected by local law enforcement agencies was frequently accessed by federal agencies involved in immigration enforcement.
Atlanta groups push back with “Flock Off!”
That issue resurfaced Tuesday in Atlanta, where activists, elected officials and community organizers gathered outside City Hall as part of a series of actions targeting Flock Safety and companies that use its technology.
Groups represented included Indivisible ATL, DeFrost Home Depot, Community Movement Builders and other local organizers. Speakers focused on the expansion of surveillance cameras across metro Atlanta, recent cases involving officers accused of misusing Flock data and concerns about immigration enforcement.
Al Solove, chair of Indivisible ATL and a member of the DeFrost Home Depot leadership team, said the coalition is specifically pressing Home Depot to end its relationship with Flock Safety.
“By contracting with Flock Safety, the Home Depot helps ICE and harms our immigrant community,” Solove told the crowd.
Home Depot says it uses license plate readers in parking lots to detect and prevent theft and protect customers and employees. According to remarks delivered at the rally, the company has also said it does not grant federal law enforcement access to its license plate readers or the data they collect.
Activists argue the concern is less about a direct relationship between Home Depot and ICE and more about the broader network into which Flock data can flow.
Flock no longer contracts directly with ICE, according to information presented at the rally. Still, many local law enforcement agencies using Flock work with federal immigration authorities, including through federal 287(g) agreements. Protest organizers said that creates a pathway through which locally collected surveillance information could potentially be accessed for immigration enforcement.
Solove cited reporting that found that a police department in Illinois conducted Flock database searches using terms related to immigration and ICE.
“This is horrifying,” Solove later told reporters when asked about the recent string of police officers disciplined over improper Flock searches. “And it invites the question: How many more people are out there who haven’t been caught?”
More than 10 officers in metro Atlanta have been fired this summer in cases involving alleged misuse of the technology, Solove said, pointing to the incidents as evidence of what activists describe as a broader problem with access to the network.
Organizers question Atlanta’s growing surveillance network
Other speakers focused on the sheer scale of surveillance technology across Atlanta and DeKalb County.
Dawn Rush, an organizer with North Decatur Action, cited figures showing the number of cameras connected to Atlanta’s surveillance network growing from roughly 3,300 in 2021 to more than 28,000.
Rush also pointed to millions of searches conducted across the network and argued that the rapid expansion has created opportunities for abuse, without providing sufficient evidence that the technology has meaningfully reduced serious crime.
Activists presented the figures and conclusions at Tuesday’s event and were not independently verified by CBS News Atlanta as part of the rally coverage.
Kamau Franklin argued that increased surveillance should not be equated with public safety.
“Surveillance is not safety,” Franklin said. “Over-policing is not safety. Mass incarceration is not safety.”
Franklin said his group plans additional demonstrations and meetings surrounding Flock’s corporate events in Atlanta this week.
“We think it’s necessary to send a message that the general public again is not for the mass surveillance that we’ve spoken about,” Franklin told reporters.
Mathewos Samson, a community organizer and Democratic candidate for Georgia House District 58, also criticized Atlanta’s reliance on surveillance technology and pointed to a proposed City Council ordinance that would require greater disclosure about the surveillance technology the city purchases, how it is accessed and who can use it.
Samson described the proposal as a limited first step toward greater oversight.
“In the long term, we have to get Flock out of Atlanta,” Samson said. “We should seek to abolish the surveillance state that does nothing but invade our privacy.”
Family separated by deportation joins surveillance debate
For Gail Macklin-Saul, the debate over surveillance is also personal.
Macklin-Saul told the crowd her husband, Omri, was deported to Senegal, leaving the couple separated by more than 5,000 miles. She emphasized that Flock cameras did not cause his deportation, but said the experience made her think differently about how much information government systems can collect about ordinary people.
“I’m not saying Flock cameras caused Omri’s deportation. It didn’t,” Macklin-Saul said. “But Omri’s story gives me a personal reason to care about the larger conversation surrounding surveillance.”
She said questions about who can access information, how long it is retained, and with whom it can be shared should be answered before communities further expand surveillance systems.
“Behind that camera is information about real people,” she said. “Their cars, where they go, how they move, and potentially where they’ve been.”
Macklin-Saul said she supports legitimate law enforcement needs but believes they should be balanced against transparency, privacy and civil rights.
“Public safety matters,” she said. “But so does human dignity. So does accountability.”
Flock announces new safeguards after reports of abuse
The protests come as Flock Safety is already facing mounting scrutiny over the misuse of its technology.
Following a Washington Post report identifying 46 cases in which police officers were accused of improperly using access to Flock’s license plate camera network — including allegations that officers used it to stalk women — Flock CEO Garrett Langley apologized during an interview with CBS News.
The company has since announced several changes, including reducing its standard footage retention period from 30 days to 7 days. Footage needed for an official investigation can still be retained through what Flock calls “Evidence Mode.”
At Wednesday’s rally, protesters said those changes do not resolve their underlying concerns about mass surveillance.
Solove argued that even with shorter retention periods and internal auditing requirements, the underlying system still collects information on large numbers of people who are not suspected of crimes.
“There really is no safe mass surveillance network,” he said.
For organizers who gathered, the demand goes beyond reforming how the technology is used. Their message to Flock was much simpler: “Flock off.”
CBS News Atlanta reached out to Flock Safety and requested an interview to address the privacy concerns and questions about the misuse of its technology.
We had not heard back as of the publishing of this article.
Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.