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Flock Reinstalled Its Cameras After Another City Canceled Its Contract
(www.thedrive.com)
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this post was submitted on 31 Oct 2026
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What..? If the city isn’t paying them to operate, who is?
The data collection is useful for tracking people across areas that are not paying for the service for others. The camera costs are tribal compared to the profit benefits of having a more complete data net to surveillance state your ass.
This is the way around the state being allowed to only actively surveil you under a warrant. They just buy the data from a private company.
This is my running theory. The value is in the network of cameras to track movement, no? The more data points they can potentially offer someone makes that data more useful/valuable.
So your theory is they are being paid by private companies to put up cameras in public spaces? That are not owned by those private companies?
No my proven fact is this private company has contracts with agencies all over the nation and as well as federal agencies and so the more cameras they have around the nation the more complete the tracking data they offer becomes.
It has nothing to do with individual cameras being paid for.
Most of their contracts include sharing the information the cameras collect with other clients. So the more complete the network is in total, the more it's worth to every client.
So even if there isn't a specific company paying for a camera, it would be on Flock's interest overall to install one there anyway, they'll just do it as part of their overall Capital Expenditures.
Once the camera is paid for and installed, it is almost free to operate. The only cost is data processing, and they want that data. They'd prefer someone else pay for it but they don't need it.
The story is the city contracted them, they put up cameras. The city cancelled the contract, they took the cameras down. Then they up cameras again. Without any contracts. Who is paying them?
No company ever does anything for free. Without a city contract, why would they ever work/provide services?
Like it’s not about operating costs. Why would a for-profit corporation ever work without being paid to do it..?
No I'm saying that they want the data. They can sell the data to others. They don't need this specific city's money for this specific camera. They need the data. It doesn't mean that someone is paying for this specific camera. And doesn't mean that the city even had access to this data anymore. Anyone can buy this data that has access to the system.
The City isn't their real customer, and public safety isn't their real product.
The like the public safety angle, because then they get cities to pay the costs of deployment, but it's profitable without them.
I workforna city that just fired Flock, and what's making them move the cameras is that we're revoking their right-of-way permits and paving the shoulders where the cameras are located. Our ROW encroachment agreement boilerplate language allows us to destroy anything that is in the way of a public works project if it isn't removed within 10 business days of notice of revocation.
Why does a cell phone company put a tower up in a mountain pass where no one lives? No one is paying for installing that tower for coverage directly, but it's in their interest to have better coverage overall for all of their customers.
Same exact thing here. Flock gets the data regardless, and having a more complete network is useful to every client.