Two years ago, there were just a handful of Flock cameras in metro Atlanta. Now there are more than 6,000 of them.
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Atlanta and other cities are debating what guardrails should be in place for license plate cameras after dozens of Georgia law enforcement officers have been caught abusing the technology.
Some residents have been trying to take matters into their own hands, using apps like Flock Hopper.
Channel 2’s Michael Doudna says avoiding these license plate reading cameras can be almost impossible.
License plate readers can be on roadways, homeowners associations or even business parking lots.
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And with thousands of these across the metro, avoiding them can be next to impossible.
“It sounds an awful lot like a surveillance state. It’s scary stuff,” said Dunwoody resident Stephen Upchurch.
The cameras have become an unwelcome part of his daily life — from driving to work to dropping his children off at school.
Cameras are nearby, taking pictures of each trip in the name of safety.
“Does someone’s safety trump someone else’s liberty?” Upchurch said.
Doudna’s normal 15-minute ride home passes roughly 30 cameras. The privacy route suggested by the app takes twice as long, and he’d still be seen by two cameras.
“At some point, a city reaches a saturation point,” Dr. Matthew Guariglia, senior police analyst with Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Critics see a surveillance network. Police see a crime-fighting tool.
Last month, this network of cameras helped find a Canton man accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old who missed her school bus.
“Privacy is a fundamental right of every human. It’s intertwined with our pursuit of happiness,” Upchurch said.
For him, that’s the problem. He says participation wasn’t a choice. It happens by simply driving down the street.
“We moved here for our kids,” Upchurch said. “We’re supposed to leave this place better than we found it for them. And I don’t think putting cameras up on every corner to watch and record them is going to be doing that for them.”
There have been multiple cases focused on how these massive camera networks lead to unconstitutional warrantless surveillance or otherwise violate constitutional rights.
However, those cases have not come to a final resolution.
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