Home improvement stores are finding ways to share data from their Flock license plate reader cameras with law enforcement, according to public records.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/56810574

The article itself is from August, but after seeing Flock cameras at a local Lowe’s store that were missing from the DeFlock map, I thought it’d be worth bringing increased attention to such companies contributing to the propagation of Flock cameras. If there’s a Home Depot or Lowe’s near you that’s not on the DeFlock map already, it might just not have been added yet.

The Home Depot nearest to where I used to live had cameras in the tools section … Which is fine, but whenever they noticed a person in view, they would turn on the attached screens and play a tone every ten seconds or so. I guess it was to remind you that you were being surveilled?

Anyway, I always found them intrusive, annoying and offensive. I’m not surprised they’ve become part of a larger problem.

TimeSquirrel
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Yeah, I used to install those a couple years ago as a security tech.

Unless they are at the register, those screens don’t even record back to a central DVR. Just a local SD card inside the screen itself. The only wire running to them is low voltage DC power, no video or network. Those things aren’t really an issue in the grand scheme, they are less intrusive than a regular security camera since you can’t even view them live at the head end.

Now the bigger ones hanging from a pole in the ceiling, yes those ARE being centrally recorded.

I’m not sure which these were, but either way, I found their presence offensive. Thanks for the information though!

They are called Flock because they are herding us up like sheep.

Someone tell Rossmann.

My local Lowe’s and Home Depot have the only Flock cameras in my county (for now, anyway).

dustycups
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The Australian equivalent got into trouble for trying something similar (without the flock integration) recently.
Kmart too.

You still have Kmart in Australia? They went bankrupt in the US. I have fond memories going there as a child in the ’80s and ’90s but it went downhill in the new millennium.

dustycups
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Similar path here until maybe 10 years ago. Now they are doing well.

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