Soon after meeting Michelle Dahl, executive director of the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project, in Brooklyn, New York, I started to see my surroundings differently.
Dahl indicated a lamppost. Two small cameras inside dark protective domes and marked NYPD equipment were easy to overlook.
They're one part of a larger surveillance network in New York City, which also includes the NYPD's Domain Awareness System or DAS.
The system draws in information from a wide range of sources, including closed-circuit television cameras, license-plate readers, 911 data, and other police databases. The NYPD says authorized personnel can use DAS to access information relevant to their official duties.
But technology is only part of the story.
American cities are filled with millions of cameras and other monitoring systems run by public agencies, businesses, apartment buildings, and private residents. License-plate readers have layered on yet another, recording vehicles as they pass certain locations and storing information that can be searched later.
The result is a surveillance landscape that can be hard for ordinary people to see, even when cameras are literally in plain sight.' The more you look, the more you see.
Dahl guided me toward the BBC office in Manhattan. In a matter of minutes I was seeing cameras I would have otherwise ignored.
I counted 16 at one time.
Some seemed to belong to businesses or residential buildings instead of the city. Their presence doesn’t mean police have direct or unfettered access to the footage. Access may be subject to ownership, agreements, requests, and applicable policies.
New York’s surveillance network is far more complex than a bunch of cameras on street corners.
The NYPD describes DAS as a central platform that can bring together feeds from CCTV cameras, license plate readers, and environmental sensors, as well as data from other police systems. The department also provides mobile access to DAS for authorized personnel.
That means surveillance is increasingly about linking information, not just recording images.
A camera outside a store could record a person's face. For example, a license-plate reader may record a vehicle passing an intersection. Another system might have a police report or 911 call.
Those bits of information alone might tell a small story. When systems connect, they provide a much more complete picture of where people and vehicles have been.
Why Flock Safety has become a hot topic
Flock Safety has emerged as one of the more high-profile companies in the debate over automated license-plate readers.
The company says thousands of law enforcement agencies and communities across the United States use its technology. Flock’s network grew to more than 120,000 cameras in more than 6,000 communities that generated about 20 billion plate scans a month by August, The Washington Post reported.
The cameras are mainly designed to detect and track vehicles, not to identify all pedestrians all the time.
And that difference counts. But the technology can still allow investigators to look for a vehicle’s movements over time, depending on the available cameras and the agency’s access.
The size of that network has raised questions about the reach of local surveillance.
In one case reviewed by The Washington Post, a police chief used Flock searches to repeatedly surveil cars belonging to his ex-girlfriend and her daughter. The Post's broader inquiry uncovered at least 50 law enforcement officers accused, charged, or convicted of misusing Flock or other license plate reader systems for unapproved reasons.
The cases have raised questions about oversight.
A follow-up post-investigation found that at least 69 police officials had been accused, charged, or convicted of misusing Flock or other license-plate-reader systems. The report also found that some departments audited officers’ searches irregularly.
Flock resets its protections.
Flock has said its technology is a public-safety tool, but that misuse is unacceptable.
Following reporting by the Washington Post, the company announced changes in August. It said officers would have to tie searches to criminal case numbers and searches would be subject to automated reviews for suspicious activity.
The company also said it would cut the default retention period for license plate data from 30 days to seven days and give police departments more control over the sharing of data.
Those changes don’t resolve the bigger debate.
The key issue is not simply whether surveillance technology can help solve crimes. It is how much information should be collected, how long it should be retained, who should have access and under what circumstances, and what safeguards exist when someone abuses it.
What do you have in your neighborhood?
You don’t require special equipment to start understanding the surveillance around you.
First look at the infrastructure you already see: cameras on buildings, traffic poles, parking lots, and commercial properties. But spotting a camera doesn’t necessarily tell you who runs it or who can view its footage.
More information can be obtained from public records.
City procurement documents, police technology policies, surveillance impact assessments, contracts, and public-record requests can provide clues as to which systems local agencies are using and what rules govern them.
License-plate-reader cameras are small and mounted along roads or at neighborhood entrances, so installations are often difficult to see.
The bigger lesson is that modern surveillance is no longer defined by a single camera.
It is turning into a network of cameras, databases, and analytical tools run by different organizations.
That complicates the privacy-versus-security debate—and makes transparency and oversight more important than ever.
