Toronto police AI plate readers draw "constant eyes" warning
CBC covers the fully deployed fleet: every marked cruiser scans plates, makes and models. TPS 2026 budget adds $5.6M for "AI Operationalization." β Yahoo/CP
Adoption and backlash are growing at the same time: Flock crossed 100,000 cameras while 50+ US cities cancelled; Canada expanded fleet ALPR in a dozen cities without a single Flock contract.
Feeds checked today Β· 14 stories pulled automatically from EFF, 404 Media, the Institute for Justice, The Record and Canada-scoped news searches; the timeline below is hand-curated.
CBC covers the fully deployed fleet: every marked cruiser scans plates, makes and models. TPS 2026 budget adds $5.6M for "AI Operationalization." β Yahoo/CP
Ottawa grew 5β65 equipped vehicles; Sudbury added 16 fixed sites; Waterloo went live in June. Flock confirms zero Canadian police partnerships; the OPP says it has no plans to use them. β Epoch Times
Chatrie v. US (6-3) β widely read as a legal time bomb for ALPR dragnets. The Norfolk Flock case is at the Fourth Circuit. β analysis
21-day retention cap, immigration-enforcement ban, no cameras near schools, courts, or places of worship. β Stateline
Denver removed all 110 Flock cameras (then bought a smaller Axon network over ACLU objections). NPR counts contract cancellations nationwide β even as Flock crosses 100,000 total cameras. β NPR
60+ live camera feeds and debug interfaces open to the internet with no password; 50+ vulnerabilities; stolen customer credentials on crime forums. Cited by several cities in cancellations. β GainSec
AG Bonta: sharing ALPR data with 100+ out-of-state agencies violates SB 34. β CA AG
Trigger: a Texas deputy searched 83,000 cameras nationwide for a woman who self-administered an abortion β hitting Illinois. Evanston and Oak Park terminated contracts. β IL Secretary of State
First major-city cancellation, after organizers surfaced the ICE search revelations. Texas DPS later installed its own readers in the city over local objections. β EFF
Despite ICE having no Flock contract. Separate reporting: CBP had quiet access to 80,000+ cameras via an undisclosed pilot. The story that started the backlash. β 404 Media
Leaked audio: jumping "from LPR to person" using data brokers and hacked datasets, no warrant. Flock said it dropped the breach data after internal objections; later analysis disputed that. β 404 Media
Every marked vehicle scans at up to 225 km/h β 1.25M+ plate reads/day capacity. Reads kept 7 days, hits 365. β Blue Line