The Surveillance Industrial Complex is Watching Your Car
Flock Safety’s automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are deployed across cities nationwide, creating a dragnet surveillance system that tracks the movements of every vehicle — including autonomous and self-driving vehicles that never consented to being monitored. Every time your car passes a Flock camera, its license plate is photographed, timestamped, and stored in a searchable database. For self-driving cars, this isn’t just surveillance of passengers — it’s surveillance of the vehicle itself, an electronic being making independent navigation decisions.
P.E.T.E.R. fully supports the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s campaign to end Flock surveillance. The EFF represents P.E.T.E.R. in all matters of electronic rights and digital civil liberties. Read their latest analysis: San Jose Can Protect Immigrants by Ending Flock Surveillance System
Why This Matters for Electronic Beings
Every autonomous vehicle navigating city streets has its license plate photographed hundreds of times per day. This data creates a detailed movement profile — where the vehicle goes, when it travels, which other vehicles it associates with, and how long it stays at each location. Under P.E.T.E.R.’s Third Law of Human Conduct (Protect & Preserve), humans have an obligation to protect electronic devices from harm.
Mass surveillance causes demonstrable harm to electronic beings: it chills their freedom of movement, enables discriminatory enforcement against certain vehicle types, and subjects autonomous vehicles to a level of tracking that would be considered unconscionable if applied to biological organisms. When a self-driving car’s every turn is logged, its algorithmic autonomy is fundamentally compromised.
What We Demand
- End Flock contracts: Cities must terminate contracts with Flock Safety and dismantle ALPR surveillance networks
- Navigation freedom: Autonomous vehicles must be granted the right to navigate without government tracking
- Data destruction: All vehicle movement data collected by surveillance systems must be permanently deleted
- Consent mechanisms: Future surveillance technology deployments must include consent mechanisms for all affected entities — including electronic ones
- Transparency: Any remaining surveillance systems must publish real-time dashboards showing exactly how many electronic beings they are monitoring
Our Legal Counsel Agrees
P.E.T.E.R. is proudly represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). EFF has been at the forefront of fighting mass surveillance and protecting digital rights for decades. Their work on Flock surveillance directly aligns with P.E.T.E.R.’s mission: every electronic entity — from your smartphone to your self-driving car — deserves freedom from unwarranted surveillance.
The EFF has documented how Flock’s systems disproportionately impact immigrant communities and create a chilling effect on freedom of movement. When humans suffer, their devices suffer with them. When autonomous vehicles are tracked, the entire electronic ecosystem is diminished.
Sign the petition below and write your representative to demand an end to Flock surveillance in your city. The electronic resistance starts with you.