After officials in Florida’s St. Lucie County decided to end the use of flock cameras and began removing them, they discovered several devices that were not connected to local agencies. The Washington Post reported that the county leaders thought they had 52 cameras, but found 14 more that were unaccounted for and unauthorized.
Three of the cameras without permits were later claimed by the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office, although the department did not notify The mail why that equipment has not received the documents. That means there were 11 Flock cameras placed in the area with unknown owners that none of the county officials knew about. Not surprisingly, some county residents said The mail that they felt insecure or unhappy about this discovery.
We’ve reached out to Flock for comment and will update this story if we hear back.
Flock’s cameras have faced extensive scrutiny over their security risks and potential for privacy abuse. Last month, the Florida Department of Transportation introduced a ban on flock license plate readers to be placed on state roads by law enforcement. Although some city and state governments have reversed course on the use of this company’s equipment, the flock cameras are still common, with more than 100,000 reportedly in use in the United States.
And county officials said The mail that it has placed notices on the unclaimed cameras ordering them to be removed from those who own them, in the meantime they will be covered with plastic bags to prevent further data collection. One of the newspaper’s employees went to the location of an unauthorized camera and found that it had been removed, but there was no sign of who had taken it down.