Flock presented a plan to turn Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles. The document, shared with 404 Media, details a proposal to use dashcams from hundreds of thousands of rideshare and delivery drivers to scan license plates.
The proposal
The presentation outlines a partnership with Nexar, a dashcam provider. 404 Media first reported the intended deal in August when sources confirmed the plan. The slides show Flock was actively pitching this collaboration to potential customers around that time.
Flock told 404 Media in an email it never executed the partnership with Nexar. The presentation still displays the ambitious plan to conscript rideshare and delivery drivers to collect license plate data for its network. It is not clear whether Uber or Lyft, or drivers working for those apps, would have been aware of the data collection.
“Hundreds of Commercial Business and HOA [home owners associations] in GA [Georgia] are part of the network,” the presentation reads. “Plus Nexar partnership which includes 350k Uber/Lyft and other delivery service devices.”
Jason Hunyar, a Dunwoody, Georgia, resident, obtained the presentation through a public records request and shared the document with 404 Media.
How it would work
Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are usually stationary units installed on tall poles. These devices constantly scan the license plate, colour, make, and brand of every vehicle that drives past. The Nexar partnership would have made those data collection efforts mobile.
Axon, the law enforcement contracting giant that also sells ALPR cameras, offers some of its cameras for installation in police officers’ roaming cars. Vigilant Solutions and the Digital Recognition Network (DRN), two ALPR companies now owned by Motorola, perform similar license plate data collection through cameras in vehicles belonging to repossession agencies.
Nexar sells various different models of dashcams providing front, cabin, and rear views. Its website states the cameras can provide “clear license plate capture with Full HD video.” Nexar markets the cameras to rideshare drivers and also “commuters,” “long-distance drivers,” and “casual drivers.”
Related stories
In September 404 Media reported that a hacker broke into Nexar and accessed a database of terabytes of video recordings taken by customers’ cameras. Those included footage of people driving around sensitive Department of Defense locations.
Flock has explored obtaining other unusual datasets too. Last May 404 Media reported Flock was building a massive people lookup tool that would use hacked data to “jump from LPR to person,” according to leaked audio. Flock scrapped those plans after 404 Media’s coverage and internal pressure.
Neither Uber nor Lyft responded to a request for comment. Neither did Nexar.
In May 404 Media reported a company called BusPatrol, that has cameras installed in tens of thousands of school buses, plans to turn those cameras into ALPRs and give access to that data to law enforcement.
What it means
The plan highlights a specific risk for drivers using consumer dashcams. A company could theoretically aggregate the data from millions of private vehicles to create a massive tracking network without the consent of the people driving them. The fact that Flock proposed this suggests the technology exists to turn private vehicles into public surveillance assets if the right commercial agreements are made.
