Flock surveillance cameras become midterm campaign target as voters balk at tech companies’ power

Wisconsin’s candidates for governor want to limit them while Pennsylvania’s say they support a ban. A Michigan congressional candidate called them “un-American.” A Florida Senate candidate is selling merch opposing them.

Across the country and up and down ballots, candidates from both parties are increasingly on the attack over Flock cameras, the AI-powered nationwide network of automated cameras that record licence plates and other characteristics of all passing vehicles, allowing law-enforcement agencies to search and share that data. Although police say the cameras are an invaluable crime-fighting tool, some critics say their pervasiveness amounts to unconstitutional warrantless mass surveillance.

The cameras sold by Atlanta-based Flock Safety, which the company has said are running in 6,000 communities in every state but Alaska, have become a new campaign issue that candidates and strategists see as part of a backlash against powerful technology companies, connected to broader debates over the future of artificial intelligence and the associated boom in data-centre construction.