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> One key feature of Flock is its national lookup tool.
> Axon, simply, does not have a national network. Meaning that it would not be possible for cops in one jurisdiction to search cameras across the country.
[...] Police departments using Axon can enter into data sharing agreements with each other, though.
> Denver, just like the City of Ferndale, explicitly mentioned this lack of this national network as part of its decision to ditch Flock for Axon.
This (probably alongside all the bad press Flock has gotten) appears to be the crux of the switching. Ultimately, the tech actually being deployed seems similar.
Also interesting:
> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests.
Vendor doesn't matter. The same issues will exist. Public safety is all about aggregating data to "operationalize" it now, so all vendors will be collecting data and sharing it with all customers just like Flock. The only benefit is that for the moment, other vendors' networks are small compared to Flock.
> One reason why journalists, activists, and residents have been able to learn so much about what police use Flock for is that the company has built auditing tools that the public can access through records requests. ... It is not clear if the same granularity of data can be learned about Axon systems, although it does allow agencies to generate audit reports.
> Axon’s documentation for its ALPR product, a “shared data” option “extends the query to partner-agency detections once a sharing relationship is active.”
Axon develops a data marketplace to streamline so-called lawful sharing of data, or acquires it via Flock and rebrands the network name. Audit capabilities are removed to streamline operational efficiency and reduce political risk. The public is no better off than before.
Same story as CALEA audit trails in the 90s. Compliance logging only exists when regulator or FOIA forces vendor's hand. Flock got burned by transparency, so agencies just picked vendor with less paper trail. Feature, not bug, for buyer.
> Axon, for example, advertises AI-powered cameras that attach to an existing streetlamp and are designed to completely blend in with their surroundings, and also collects license plate data with cameras installed inside police officers’ patrol vehicles
If anything this will make it go from bad to worse along all axes -- decentralized sharing, making it harder to track data request/usage, hide surveillance in an infrastructure that is considered essential, and host of other things..
Axon is also known as Taser, the company that popularised these sometimes-lethal weapons but promises they are completely safe and never lethal, and now supplies most of America's electronic police equipment.
Illegal doesn't mean rare though. Anyone actually pulled stats on how often plate covers or reflective sprays show up in citations vs just get waved off by cops as not worth the hassle? Enforcement gap probably bigger than the legality gap.
Axon is a public company with market cap of $50B. It is an incumbent with a huge business in bodycams and tasers with a huge number of US police departments. Flock has a $7.5B valuation at it's last funding round, and is the new comer.
More likely for Axon to acquire flock than the other way around.
Axon just replaces Flock in some places. But I forgot to say that it probably doesn't matter much, and that whatever anyone resents about the whole thing, will just get worse.
They're a public company with a $50B market cap. That's not going to happen.
The direction would be the other way around. Axon is showing that they want the market, that they can build the tech themselves, and that they can leverage their extensive existing relationships with law enforcement and municipal governments as sales channels.
Antitrust math doesn't favor that direction. Axon's already fighting DOJ scrutiny over its TASER/bodycam dominance; absorbing the other major LPR vendor would be a much harder Hart-Scott-Rodino review than the reverse. Historically it's the larger incumbent that acquires the disruptor, not the other way round.
We swapped vendors at a small municipal client last year expecting the data-sharing problem to go away. It didn't, just moved to a different dashboard. If you actually want less surveillance, push for a retention/audit policy in the contract, not a vendor switch.
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