EyesOffKC organizes against Flock surveillance for upcoming National Week of Action

Dissent has risen on the national and local levels for Automatic License Plate Readers, cameras that capture data from passing vehicles, headlined by Flock Safety. ALPR companies boast cases of their technology assisting missing persons cases, recovering stolen vehicles, and theft prevention, but the roughly 1,500 cameras in the KC area have prompted surveillance and privacy concerns from residents.

Kansas Watch’s ALPR Abuse Library documents misuses of the technology, including data breaches, false arrests, collaboration with ICE, and most commonly, stalking.

ALPRs—Flock, Motorola Solutions, and Genetec—are employed across Kansas and Missouri, often at intersections or by major highways. Posters have been spotted in downtown KC pointing out ALPRs, citing deflock.org for more information, a website that lists all camera locations across the U.S.

EyesOffKC is a newly formed group working to ban ALPRs in Kansas City. Organizer Kevin (name anonymized for safety) says they’ll be participating in the National Week of Action Against ALPRs from August 16 to 22.

“Abuses for exercising your freedom of speech, it’s already been done, and it will keep happening because these cameras and their databases are way too powerful,” says Kevin, referring to a recent incident where Canyen Ashworth was tracked by Lenexa police using ALPRs after he wrote a critical guest column about the department. The cops connected him to political posters hung in the city and followed his movements.

The abuse examples that are closest to home are cases of harassment through ALPRs by police. In the ALPR Abuse Library, there are eight instances of domestic abuse enablement and 23 instances of stalking and tracking.

Also in Kansas, a Kechi police lieutenant used Flock license plate trackers to stalk his estranged wife, a Sedgwick police chief searched for his ex-girlfriend and her boyfriend over 200 times, and a Bonner Springs police detective misused resources to track his wife.

In Missouri, a Joplin man used Flock cameras to track a single license plate 395 times. Kevin cited a case in Dunwoody, Georgia, as one of the egregious examples of ALPR abuse, where cameras were accessed during a sales demonstration that were located in a children’s gymnastics room, a pool, and other sensitive areas in the city.

According to 404Media, Flock cameras can and have been used to identify specific people, not just cars like what is marketed, as seen with Ashworth’s case in Lenexa. 

“ALPRs are a misnomer. The software is able to distinguish everything. People based on their height, weight, race, gender, gait, so your walking strides, the clothing you wear, it can all be identified,” Kevin says. He, along with KC DSA, is advocating for Kansas City to cancel its contracts with ALPR companies, and in the long run, abolition of the technology. According to Deflock, over 90 cities have rejected proposals, deactivated cameras, or cancelled contracts altogether.

The upcoming National Week of Action has over 10,000 people registered across the country. Though the schedule has not been released yet, Kevin says Kansas City will host informational meetings, and DeFlock says cities may canvass, attend city council meetings, host marches or scavenger hunts that point out ALPRs, and more.

Until then, Kevin advises citizens who reject ALPR surveillance to call local representatives and speak during town halls.

“ALPRs are an indiscriminate Fourth Amendment violation, in my opinion,” he says.