Flock Safety Didn't Threaten Participants in a Surveillance Debate

The Instagram account of a lecture club in the California city of Newport Beach posted a photo of a document resembling a cease and desist letter from Flock Safety.

Flock Safety is a maker of video surveillance systems and automatic license plate readers that works with U.S. law enforcement. The company has repeatedly found itself at the center of criticism over how widely police use its technology and over questions about how that data is applied in practice.

The letter's publication touched off yet another wave of outrage directed at the company: users read the document as an attempt to silence people who publicly discuss and criticize surveillance technology.

However, as the headline of The Verge's article notes, this is not a case of Flock Safety threatening people simply for debating surveillance. The specifics of what the letter actually said and what claims it made are not spelled out in the brief summary.

The story itself shows just how sensitive the subject of mass video surveillance and license plate recognition remains: any move by a company like Flock Safety quickly becomes fodder for public uproar, even when the underlying facts still need to be clarified.

Source: The Verge