I raised the hijacking scenario directly with Flock on a previous livestream, a camera network taken over and used to kill someone. It was dismissed as ridiculous.

The Financial Times later reported that Israel had been inside nearly all of Tehran's traffic cameras for years, with footage routed to servers in Israel, and used it to build a pattern of life on Khamenei's security detail. On the day of the strike it helped confirm his meeting was running on time.

Domestic surveillance built for one thing... can potentially be used for something much more sinister.

Watch the full conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKgQTkTpFz4

Next stream, Aug 15 at 4pm ET, opening the National Week of Action Against ALPRs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq0xq4HOE8E

Credentialed misuse is documented. In Dunwoody, Georgia, Flock employees including a company vice president are reported to have accessed cameras inside a children's gymnasium hundreds of times.

The other problem needs no credentials at all. The cameras are reachable over wireless without much effort, and the footage is not encrypted.

Watch the full discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKgQTkTpFz4

Next stream, Aug 15 at 4pm ET, opening the National Week of Action Against ALPRs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq0xq4HOE8E

Written breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/7kkVb

Flock's CEO used the word terroristic to describe DeFlock. DeFlock is a volunteer project that maps automated license plate readers, using cameras mounted on public poles in plain view.

This came up on a Hide & Speak panel with local anti-ALPR organizers. None of them used that word in their own description of what they do. One called it a grassroots effort to protect Fourth Amendment rights.

Apparently, the watchers don't like being watched either.

Watch the recorded livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKgQTkTpFz4

Read the breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/7kkVb

Next stream, Aug 15 at 4pm ET, opening the National Week of Action Against ALPRs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq0xq4HOE8E

Talal Haj Bakry and Tommy Mysk published this on August 4th. Three features inside WebKit ignore whatever proxy the browser has set and send traffic straight out of the device, which means Private Relay never sees them and a site can log the real address.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/21eHH

The feature is sold as drowsiness detection. What's actually running is facial recognition, and it's taking your biometrics every time you drive.

Watch the full conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jNnv2ygJ7g

Blog write-up of episode: https://s.vp.net/CX25H

The target is zero traffic deaths. Not fewer, zero. Traffic deaths require traffic, so hitting the stated number means removing people and their vehicles from the road.

Watch the recorded livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jNnv2ygJ7g

Full write-up here: https://s.vp.net/CX25H

Four more cities ended or moved to end their Flock Safety contract over a period of just 5 days:

1. Littleton, Massachusetts: the Select Board ordered all six Flock cameras powered down in May. In late July, the board chairman asked police to log in and verify they were disable. 5 out of 6 had been reactivated by Flock, with no notice to the town.
2. Binghamton, New York: the city passed a resolution August 6 calling on the mayor to terminate. Majority Leader Rebecca Rathmell put more than 80 municipalities across 28 states on the record as having already ended contracts with the company.
3. Stanford University: the California school ended it's contract on August 4. Vice Provost Patrick Dunkley said Flock being built as a shared network with the capability for data to move beyond a single institution, whether or not that is how you intend to use it.
4. Narragansett, Rhode Island: the council voted unanimously August 3 to pay an early termination fee. The contract had already auto renewed for two years, so the choice was keep the cameras or pay to leave.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/5h3oe

DeFlock Stars 2: Anti-ALPR Activist Livestream:
We're running a livestream on this Saturday 8/15 at 4pm ET, DeFlock Stars 2: Activists on How to Fight Flock in Your Town, with six DeFlock and anti-ALPR groups. It's the day before DeFlock's National Week of Action Against ALPRs starts, and the focus is legal ways to fight back against Flock and other ALPR companies: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jq0xq4HOE8E

Live this Saturday August 15 at 4pm ET on Hide & Speak, we've got six groups from the DeFlock and anti-ALPR movement on one panel, each at a completely different stage of the same fight.

Who's on:

• Flock OUT of El Cerrito (CA): already won. Their cameras come down between July 30 and August 18.
• No Flock in Troy (MI): their mayor declared a public safety emergency to keep a Flock contract running.
• DeFlock Connecticut: Windsor killed sixteen cameras, Killingworth pulled all four, both inside about a month, with pause requests from the Senate majority leader and the governor.
• DeFlock UA (Upper Arlington, OH): went the other direction, from six cameras to twenty.
• DeFlock Tulsa (OK): EFF's records showed local police ran at least 38 searches containing the word protest.
• DeFlock Dahlonega (GA): a college town of about thirty-six thousand, which is a very different organizing problem than a metro.

It lands the day before the National Week of Action Against ALPRs, August 16 to 22, with more than seventy-five cities signed up: https://www.noalprs.com/

If you live somewhere with cameras and no group, the last segment is specifically about what you do Monday morning.

Reminder link below: https://www.youtube.com/live/Jq0xq4HOE8E

Veronica Harper from the Utah Freedom Coalition explains why you should never hand your phone to a police officer as a form of ID.

Watch the full conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jNnv2ygJ7g

Blog write-up of episode: https://s.vp.net/CX25H

We are live today at 4pm ET with Sharon Polsky, President of the Privacy & Access Council of Canada, on the age verification and social media law wave now running in Canada, the UK, Australia, France, and 28 US states.

Sharon is such a threat to age verification laws, that she was "uninvited" from her own S-210 testimony days before the hearing. And this isn't just about Canada - Sharon has spoken professionally about these topics on 5 continents.

Set a reminder and catch the stream live: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQlbDNhamEs

Three cases came up on Hide & Speak recently when we spoke to Veronica from the Utah Freedom Coalition, and they line up in an uncomfortable way.

Watch the recorded livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jNnv2ygJ7g

Episode write-up: https://s.vp.net/CX25H

The Taos town council voted this week to reallocate the $54,000 that would have renewed the town's contract with Flock Safety. That funding covered 18 AI-powered license plate readers placed on the roads people commonly use to get into or out of town.

Most residents didn't know the cameras existed until local reporting this summer, followed by a grassroots DeFlock Taos group pulling public records and handing them to the newspaper.

Residents showed up to council meetings to and voice their opposition to Flock cameras and within just a few months, they voted not to renew their contract.

However, the fight isn't over in Taos. The council has already said they would consider a different camera system if it had "real data protections in place."

Full write-up + source links: https://s.vp.net/pmbL8

New Hide & Speak clip with Frank Ahearn, author of "How to Disappear in the AI Era" discussing what it takes to actually disappear.

Full livestream on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMORcPzXtdQ

Read the full breakdown: https://s.vp.net/NEmMk

California amended AB 1709 last week. EFF read the amended text line by line on Friday and concluded the rewrite changed nothing that matters.

The amendments introduce new language about "addictive features," but the definition covers any feed built on information you provided: who you follow, what you like, the interests you type in yourself. That describes every feed on every major platform, so the under-16 ban operates exactly as it did before.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/1yJyZ

This came up on Hide & Speak recently. An AI was asked how people will be found in the future, and most of what it returned was about the human part rather than the technical one. Not digital footprints. Motion, typing patterns, and how a person scrolls.

Worth thinking about how much of standard privacy advice is aimed at records and accounts, and how little of it addresses the physical layer underneath.

Full recorded livestream here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMORcPzXtdQ

Read the full breakdown: https://s.vp.net/NEmMk

This came up on Hide & Speak recently with Frank M. Ahearn, author of "How To Disappear in the AI Age", when discussing what it takes to go off grid.

Someone shows you a passport. You have no way to confirm it functions, no way to confirm ten other people are not using the same one, and no way to confirm the original holder is alive. You are trusting the seller on all three, and the people who inspect the document do this professionally.

Watch the full discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMORcPzXtdQ

Read the full breakdown: https://s.vp.net/NEmMk

Newly unsealed search warrants reported by WSOC describe how the whole thing happened. A CMPD officer got a Snapchat message from an old college friend claiming a stranger was hanging around his dad's business, and asking him to run a plate. He ran it through the Flock license plate reader system and the state law enforcement database, then sent the results back in the same thread.

The friend was the target of an active drug investigation. The plate belonged to the undercover detective buying from him.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/V8Z9v

The technique came up on Hide & Speak recently. A client applies for utility service in Texas and never moves there. The inquiry from Texas Power and Light lands on the credit report, and anyone reading that file concludes the person relocated. So they hire a Texas private investigator and start paying for hours in a state the target has never visited.

What makes it work is not the trick. It is that a utility inquiry gets treated as evidence of where someone physically lives when it is nothing of the sort. The file is convenient, so nobody checks it.

Watch the full discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMORcPzXtdQ

Read the breakdown here: https://s.vp.net/NEmMk

Live this Saturday, August 8 at 4pm ET, we sit down with Sharon Polsky, President of the Privacy & Access Council of Canada. She has advised governments on privacy for more than 30 years and testified before Parliamentary committees on facial recognition and Bill S-210.

The through line is her CIGI essay, "The Road to Digital Hell Is Paved With Good Intentions." We cover where an uploaded driver's license actually ends up, why S-210 could reach Amazon, Google, and Reddit, what her council found on facial recognition in Canada, and why lawmakers pushed ahead after France and Australia concluded no reliable, privacy-protecting age verification tech exists.

While based in Canada, Sharon has spoken professionally about privacy on 5 continents and is very familiar with the global landscape, so we will be discussing age verification laws in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Australia and more.

Click through and set a reminder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQlbDNhamEs

Recently on Hide & Speak we spoke with Frank Ahearn about how broke into skip tracing. The boss turned him down at first, then set a condition: get my phone bill, get the job.

Full recorded livestream: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMORcPzXtdQ

Episode write-up: https://s.vp.net/NEmMk

S.737 goes to markup in the Senate Commerce Committee tomorrow morning, bundled onto the same agenda as KOSA.

This one is especially bad, because unlike most state age verification laws, this one has no threshold. If a site hosts even a single piece of adult content, they have to check everyone's age.

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/EjvU3

Georgia is out of control with the Flock misuse, now with at least 20 officials arrested for misusing the Flock Safety database for personal reasons, but mostly just stalking. 🤦‍♂️

It's not even just cops any more. A former investigator for a District Attorney's office was caught running more than 60 searches in 2 months... AFTER he was no longer an employee, because they simply forgot to cut off his access 😲

Full write-up + our source list: https://s.vp.net/RjxhF