The Texas Commission on Law Enforcement ordered the five-officer Trinidad Police Department to close by September 18 after finding it offered no meaningful public benefit and lacked basic equipment like bulletproof vests and an evidence room. The investigation followed the arrest of resident Jennifer Combs, who was jailed for a Facebook post claiming residents had gotten sick from discolored tap water; charges against her were eventually dropped. Henderson County's sheriff's office will handle policing duties until Trinidad finds a permanent replacement.
dallasnews.com
· 2026-09-22
Waymo says its robotaxi detected a terms-of-service violation involving a firearm, pulled over, and alerted emergency responders, leading police to arrest two teenagers after allegedly finding a loaded AR-style ghost gun inside the car. The incident adds to a growing list of episodes where Waymo vehicles have supplied footage or triggered law enforcement action, including hit-and-run evidence and protest surveillance concerns.
theverge.com
· 2026-09-17
President Trump told reporters he supports Flock Safety, the company operating a nationwide network of over 120,000 AI-powered license plate cameras used by law enforcement. He acknowledged critics view the technology as an infringement on privacy but said he personally favors it for helping police.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-14
Clearview AI, known for scraping billions of photos for facial recognition, is developing an experimental tool called InquiryIQ that would let police feed in a suspect's name and details to automatically scour the web for their employer, aliases, associates, and physical traits. The tool has reportedly tested a model from SpaceXAI, the company behind Grok, and its interface suggests entering demographic data like race and gender helps it make 'smarter decisions.' Clearview has not released InquiryIQ publicly and declined to explain how such inputs affect its outputs.
wired.com
· 2026-09-10
Anti-surveillance group Secure Justice reports that 214 local governments have cancelled or declined to renew contracts with license-plate-reading company Flock since 2021, with cancellations quadrupling from July to August 2025 alone. Because Flock's value depends on a networked web of cameras shared across jurisdictions, losing contracts in one town can trigger cancellations in neighboring ones, compounding the losses even as Flock insists new signups still outpace cancellations.
futurism.com
· 2026-09-01
The European Commission unveiled a new internal security strategy called ProtectEU, framing rising cybercrime and terrorism threats as justification for developing 'technological solutions' to access encrypted communications. The plan avoids concrete legislative proposals for now, instead calling for a roadmap on lawful law enforcement access to encrypted data.
reclaimthenet.org
· 2026-08-30
A DuckDuckGo Research survey found that about one-third of people disclose sensitive personal details to AI chatbots that they withhold from friends, family, and doctors, with the figure rising to 56% among self-identified AI enthusiasts. Nearly half of parents surveyed admitted to telling chatbots things they've never shared with their own children or closest confidants.
cnet.com
· 2026-08-27
Ring has introduced a new encryption system that deletes the company's copy of users' video decryption keys after 24 hours. This means that once that window closes, Ring itself no longer holds the keys needed to decrypt footage, restricting what it can hand over in response to law enforcement requests.
gizmodo.com
· 2026-08-26
Apple has abandoned its plan to shift Hide My Email addresses from the @icloud.com domain to @private.icloud.com. The company confirmed Monday that masked email addresses will stay on @icloud.com, reversing an earlier decision announced this year.
techcrunch.com
· 2026-08-25
DuckDuckGo's new survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. adults found that almost a third of respondents have confided something to an AI chatbot they wouldn't tell friends, family or doctors, with the figure jumping to 56% among self-identified AI enthusiasts. The survey also found that most respondents didn't know chatbot conversations are typically used for training by default, and only a quarter knew such chats could be subpoenaed by law enforcement.
9to5mac.com
· 2026-08-25
Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley used a Fox News interview to urge critics to find a middle ground between privacy and public safety, as opposition to his company's AI camera network intensifies. The remarks follow a Washington Post investigation that uncovered dozens of cases of police misusing Flock's surveillance tools, including to track women, prompting Langley to issue a public apology earlier this month.
futurism.com
· 2026-08-24
Georgia's GBI arrested three former Savannah Police Department officers and one former civilian staffer for improperly accessing Flock Safety's license plate reader network for non-law-enforcement purposes. The officers face two counts of misuse of a license plate reader system plus a violation of oath of office charge, while the civilian employee faces two misuse counts. Savannah PD uncovered the abuse through an internal audit, fired the individuals, and referred the case to state investigators.
techspot.com
· 2026-08-24
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