US university students tell surveillance cameras to Flock off

Angela Nguyen, a senior at Stanford University, has been on a mission to make sure her school doesn’t use automated license plate readers, like those made by Flock Safety, for mass surveillance. The 21-year-old computer science major helped collect hundreds of signatures earlier this year from students, faculty, alumni and residents to demand that Stanford drop its current Flock contract and codify safeguards for similar tech tools the school may use in the future. The fear, Nguyen says, is that these cameras, which show where a vehicle was at a certain point in time, can be exploited to victimize vulnerable people.

Stanford cut ties with Flock this summer, and it’s not alone. The privacy reckoning over the company’s surveillance cameras is gaining momentum at schools nationwide. Since April, at least ten university campuses across seven states, have scrapped contracts with Flock. That includes Cornell University , Penn State University , Elgin Community College , Emory University , Binghamton University , Kent State University and the University of Wisconsin’s Madison , Milwaukee and Oshkosh branches. Last week, the University of Buffalo announced an indefinite pause on its plans for a 60-day pilot program.

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