GoKawiil
Tech News
Every officer in the Milner, Georgia police department resigned after Mayor Craig Timmons revealed he had tracked police chief Lamar Bunn's work truck and installed a surveillance camera aimed at his office as part of a payroll fraud investigation. Timmons presented the findings at a hastily called city council meeting; Bunn denies the allegations, saying off-hours and out-of-city work is common for Milner officers.
Since this summer, more than ten U.S. municipalities and police departments—including Asheville, Richmond, Lansing, Monroe, and League City—have voted to end, restrict, or phase out contracts with Flock Safety's license plate readers and other surveillance tools. The moves follow local pushback over privacy, data-sharing practices, and procurement concerns, with Flock cameras currently deployed in over 100,000 locations nationwide.
Guests at Airbnbs, hotels and other short-term rentals face the risk of hidden cameras disguised as everyday objects like smoke detectors or chargers. A 2024 CNN report found Airbnb fielded roughly 35,000 support tickets tied to surveillance devices over a decade, though Airbnb says such complaints affect under 0.1 percent of listings and bans indoor recording devices while allowing outdoor security cameras.
The 2026 midterm elections, which will shape the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency, are expected to center largely on affordability but also include several technology-related topics on voters' minds. These include rising energy costs tied to data centers, AI safety, expansion of surveillance tools like Flock, and a California ballot measure to tax billionaire wealth that has prompted heavy tech industry spending and new stock structures.
Richmond, Virginia police used vague Flock camera descriptions—make, model, color, approximate year—to identify Rosalyn Crump's 2012 Hyundai Elantra as connected to a shooting, despite lacking a license plate match. Officers impounded her car over her objections and despite body cam footage showing an officer doubting the match, and later identified a different vehicle as the actual suspect car. Crump wasn't told her car was released for four days, and only learned upon pickup that Seibert's Towing had torn off the front bumper during impoundment.
A commentary published in Nature argues that current epidemic-tracking methods—event-based monitoring, genomic sequencing, and syndromic surveillance—fail to catch pathogens that present with atypical or evolving symptoms. The authors point to the ongoing Ebola outbreak, the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, and the 2022 mpox outbreak as examples where unusual symptom presentations delayed detection and containment. They propose five overlooked steps to improve early identification of new epidemics.
Emory University has removed Flock Safety's automated license-plate-reading cameras from campus, with a spokesperson saying the move keeps safety infrastructure under the institution's own control. The decision follows a broader student-led 'de-flock' movement questioning the use of Flock's surveillance technology at colleges.
AI-powered facial recognition surveillance systems used by UK retailers including Home Bargains and Budgens have reportedly misidentified innocent customers as shoplifters, according to TechRadar. In documented cases, shoppers were removed from stores by management based on false matches, with little immediate ability to contest the accusation.
The city of Dayton, Minnesota says Flock Safety installed and activated two license-plate cameras despite being told on September 18 that the program was on hold and no work orders should proceed. City staff later found a second reinstalled camera and have asked Flock to remove both. Separately, police departments in Crystal and St. Paul, Minnesota removed Flock cameras themselves after council votes ended their contracts, and are still waiting for Flock to retrieve the equipment.
A new report looks at how home security cameras affect residents' sense of safety, noting that the devices can deter crime and offer reassurance. At the same time, the footage they capture sometimes depicts strange or frightening events that leave users unsettled rather than comforted.
US Coast Guard-contracted Saildrone autonomous vessels, equipped with 360-degree cameras, have begun patrolling the Great Lakes border between the US and Canada since May, funded by $15.5 million from Trump's 'One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.' Sarnia Mayor Mike Bradley says he spotted one on the St Clair River and was never notified by US authorities, and is unsure whether Canada's federal government was informed or consented.
Dayton, Minnesota's government says Flock reinstalled two surveillance cameras and put them back into service despite being told a day earlier that the city's work order program was on hold. Residents noticed the cameras and alerted police, who removed them; Dayton had already voted in August to cancel its Flock contract, and city officials say the company took five days to acknowledge the cancellation and said removal would take 60 days.