A police chief in Oshkosh, Wisconsin caught Flock lying to his city council, and killed the $8 billion surveillance company's contract less than a day after the council had approved it.
Here's how it happened.
The night before, Oshkosh's council was set to renew its deal with Flock Safety, the license plate camera company backed by a16z and Tiger Global.
One council member asked the Flock rep a plain yes-or-no question. Does this system build a heat map of everywhere a specific car travels over time?
Flock's rep said no.
The council believed him and voted 5 to 2 to renew. By the next morning, Chief Dean Smith's own officers had told him that answer was false.
So he pulled up the system himself. He watched it generate the exact heat map Flock had just sworn it couldn't make.
Then he walked into an emergency meeting and said it out loud: "Because of this misrepresentation, I can no longer recommend Flock."
Understand what a heat map is, because it's the whole trick.
Flock sells cities a tidy little story. A car drives by, we snap a photo, we read the plate, that's all it is.
But the same system can quietly average out where your car goes day after day and paint your routine onto a map.
Not one snapshot at one corner. Your pattern. Where you sleep, where you work, where you keep going back and how often.
A Flock employee later admitted on the record that the software does exactly that.
So the pitch and the product are two different things. The company wins the contract selling a plate reader, then sits on a moving map of your life.
The only reason Oshkosh caught it was one skeptical question and a police chief who bothered to check the answer.
The vote to rescind was 7 to 0. Unanimous.
Flock called the whole thing "one small misconception" from a long meeting and said it was disappointed nobody let it explain.
A surveillance company worth eight billion dollars got caught lying about whether it maps where you drive. Its defense was that the lie was small.
Oshkosh got one honest answer by accident. Congress can make it the rule.
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@CelesteVRave Also, most kids biologically prefer their mothers due to bonding until the age of 5, at which time they stop telling daddy to go away and crying if he tries to help. Feminists are idiots.
Ilhan Omar is really Ilhan ELMI. Why did dad falsely change his and her last name? Cuz he was a commie govt leader INELIGIBLE for US refugee entry OR naturalization. His oldest kid took the youngest to UK. Dad & Ilhan came to US hiding as Omar's. She's an illegal alien. DEPORT
@GuntherEagleman Not sure why we elevate doctors in society. At no time in my last 15 years did they do more research about any condition I have needed help with than I did myself. They read form a book and can pass a test. Unless they’re from India, and they buy the degree
Americans do not surrender their privacy rights when they drive to work, drop their kids off at school, or go to church.
I’m investigating Flock cameras to determine WHO has access to hundreds of millions of Americans’ data - and what they’re doing with it
@paleochristcon Men with high testosterone using it as an excuse to commit heinous crimes should be convicted of the crimes. Women using excuses to commit heinous crimes should
Be convicted of the crimes. I think she was staging attempted suicide so she could get off with insanity.