Florida Finds Untraceable Surveillance Cameras With No Owners
Surveillance control · 01.10.2026

Флорида решила убрать камеры слежения за машинами — и внезапно обнаружила, что часть из них вообще ничья.

*(Below is the full English translation of the post, as required)*

Florida decided to remove license plate surveillance cameras — and suddenly discovered that some of them belong to no one at all. St. Lucie County ordered Flock cameras taken down from local roads, and in the process, police dug up 14 such devices. 11 of them had no clear owner. They just sit there, scanning license plates, and who's looking at that data remains a mystery.

County Commissioner James Clasby put it in refreshingly plain terms: there's a risk these cameras are being used by more than just law enforcement, and that doesn't sit well with him. Makes sense — it's one thing for police to track your car lawfully, and quite another for some unknown party to do it without authorization.

Then it got even more absurd. The Sheriff's Office admitted that three of the cameras were its own. But it refused to explain why they lacked the required permits. And it wouldn't say whether data from these cameras had ever been used at all. In other words: the cameras are ours, but the details are none of your business.

Against this backdrop, stories about the actual use of Flock look less like bugs and more like a pattern. A Fort Pierce police officer, Joseferf Crutchfield, accessed the Flock database 382 times to stalk his ex-girlfriend. Another officer, Christopher Gudson, nearly doubled that record while hunting down his runaway wife. In Pinellas County, two cops were actually arrested: one, Travis Stanton, was searching for a minor, and the other, Karl Gwinn, was stalking a woman he wanted to date. The Washington Post counted at least 50 similar abuse cases nationwide.

Flock claims it has added safeguards against this kind of misuse. Experts put it more bluntly: it doesn't work. Meanwhile, the cameras keep standing — registered, unregistered, ownerless — recording everyone who passes by.

Source: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/10/florida-cops-say-they-dont-know-who-owns-11-unpermitted-flock-cameras/