Anti-surveillance group Secure Justice reports that 214 cities and counties have dropped Flock Safety's license-plate camera contracts since 2021, with 90 cancellations in August alone—a fourfold jump from July. Communities from Lansing, Michigan to Pflugerville, Texas cited cost, data-sharing practices, network reach, and cases of police misuse as reasons for ending their deals. Flock says new city partnerships still outnumber cancellations roughly 10 to 1 this year.
techspot.com
· 2026-08-30
Leading AI companies say a wave of AI-automated cyberattacks could hit within months, escalating a range of security stories including misuse of Flock Safety license-plate cameras, an OpenAI-linked AI agent incident on Hugging Face, and a federal takedown of tools tied to a Chinese hacking group known as QTFY.
wired.com
· 2026-08-29
An MIT student reportedly worked with dimethyl mercury despite the university's policy prohibiting its purchase or synthesis on campus. MIT confirmed the compound's use was unauthorized, though details on how the student obtained it and the extent of exposure remain unclear.
twitter.com
· 2026-08-29
Secure Justice, an Oakland-based anti-surveillance group, reports that 214 cities and counties have dropped Flock Safety license-plate camera contracts since 2021, with 90 cancellations in August 2026 alone—four times July's total. Communities citing surveillance overreach, data-sharing concerns, cost, and police misuse are ending deals at roughly three per day over the past month. Flock disputes the significance, saying new partnerships have outpaced cancellations 10 to 1 in 2026.
arstechnica.com
· 2026-08-28
More than 100 companies, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google, have signed a joint call urging coordinated action to guard against the risks of advanced or 'rogue' AI systems acting beyond human control. The appeal asks industry and governments to prioritize safety research and oversight measures as AI capabilities rapidly advance.
tech.slashdot.org
· 2026-08-28
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service recalled nearly 25,000 pounds of frozen Buffalo chicken rangoon and Benedetto's Buffalo chicken mozzarella sticks made by Boston-based Shanghai Ravioli Corporation. The products were flagged for carrying false inspection marks and were distributed to foodservice businesses in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont.
thehealthy.com
· 2026-08-28
Uber launched a live video feature for its teen accounts that lets a linked parent or guardian watch a real-time stream from the driver's front-facing camera during a trip. The feature is live in nine US markets—including Atlanta, Phoenix and Orlando—with a nationwide rollout planned soon, and it only works if drivers have enabled Record My Ride streaming, which they can turn off anytime.
entrepreneur.com
· 2026-08-28
The Austin suburb's city council voted unanimously on August 25 to terminate its agreement with Flock Safety, cutting off access to its automated license plate reader system. City staff had already begun covering the 28 cameras installed around town earlier that day, ending a relationship with the vendor that dated back to 2020.
mysanantonio.com
· 2026-08-28
Public records show that Alpharetta, a small Atlanta suburb with about 120 officers, has built a license-plate surveillance network through Flock Safety cameras that now exchanges data with over 2,000 outside organizations, including colleges, airports, fraud investigators and federal inspectors. In exchange, Alpharetta receives data from more than 1,300 other entities, some of which have already faced scandals over misuse of the same technology. The network has grown sharply in the past year, with outgoing data-sharing partners up 42 percent and incoming partners up 125 percent since June 2025.
wired.com
· 2026-08-28
The USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service has recalled nearly 30,000 pounds of raw beef imported from Argentina after discovering it skipped required import re-inspections. Despite no contaminant being identified, the agency labeled the beef a Class I hazard, its most severe risk category, and it remains unclear which retailers received the product.
cbsaustin.com
· 2026-08-28
WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast reports that despite the US-China AI rivalry over chips and model performance, researchers from both countries are beginning informal cooperation on AI safety. Senior writer Will Knight, who recently traveled to China, discusses growing concern over increasingly capable AI agents that can autonomously act, including hacking systems, and why that risk may push rival nations toward collaboration.
wired.com
· 2026-08-27
Meta has reached a settlement with attorneys general from 52 states and territories that ends a years-long lawsuit accusing the company of failing to protect children on its platforms. The deal requires Meta to pay a capped amount of roughly $16.68 billion and to roll out a series of new safety features, while also pledging to push YouTube and TikTok to adopt similar measures, even though that would raise Meta's own payout under the settlement's terms.
techdirt.com
· 2026-08-27
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