Firearms businesses across the U.S. are pulling down their Flock security cameras because customers fear the cameras have turned into a monitoring network that threatens their gun rights.
Michael Carter, owner of Gun Commanders in Cleveland, Georgia, installed Flock cameras two years ago to combat burglars and help law enforcement nab illegal gun buyers.
He took the cameras down after his customers complained and posted criticisms on social media.
Their ire is but the latest manifestation of a nationwide privacy-rights backlash against Flock’s artificial intelligence-powered cameras discreetly installed on street corners, in parks, parking lots, neighborhoods or on drones buzzing overhead.
“I installed the system with the best of intentions — to protect the people who walk through our doors every day,” Mr. Carter told Now Georgia. “After listening to my customers, I realized that maintaining their trust is more important than any piece of technology.”
In Cudahy, Wisconsin, the Eagle Sports Range faced a similar dilemma. But when the Atlanta-based Flock Safety was asked to remove the cameras over privacy concerns, the company said the firing range was contractually bound to keep the cameras rolling.
“To heck with this contract. We’ll deal with that later on,” Saad Jaber, general manager of Eagle Sports Range, told ABC News 12. “We own our privacy, but when that privacy gets infringed, then what are we doing? What kind of nation are we going to become?”
The Flock cameras came down.
John Commerford, executive director of the National Rifle Association Institute for Legislative Action, said there was bound to be a collision between Flock cameras and gun rights.
“These tools dramatically expand the government’s ability to monitor and track everyday citizens going about their lives and could be used to create a de facto registry of gun owners,” he told The Washington Times.
Federal law prohibits the U.S. government from creating or maintaining a centralized national firearms registry, a statute that firearm advocacy groups have been fighting to ensure is not violated or rewritten.
Mr. Commerford wondered what happens to the video footage and who has access to it.
“How can AI maybe misuse that data to create a registry?” he said. “The Second Amendment protects the right to keep and bear arms free from continuous government monitoring, and mass tracking of lawful gun owners threatens both privacy and liberty.”
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