When Surveillance Becomes the Real Crime: Flock Cameras and the Erosion of Public Privacy
The news that hit my feed this morning made my blood run cold. A woman seeking an abortion was tracked using Flock camera systems – those ubiquitous license plate readers that seem to multiply on our streets like weeds after rain. The authorities used this surveillance network to build a case against her, turning what should be private healthcare into a digital dragnet.
This isn’t just about reproductive rights, though that’s certainly part of it. This is about how we’ve sleepwalked into a surveillance state while telling ourselves it’s all for our own good.
I’ve been working in IT long enough to know that any system designed to “catch the bad guys” will inevitably be used against ordinary people doing ordinary things that someone in power doesn’t like. It’s not a bug – it’s a feature. The scope creep is always intentional, even if they won’t admit it upfront.
What really gets me is how we got here. Politicians sold us on these camera networks by promising they’d help solve “real crime” – you know, the murders, the drug trafficking, the serious stuff that keeps us awake at night. But where do we see them being used? To prosecute someone for seeking medical care. To track down people for the smallest infractions while the genuinely dangerous criminals seem to slip through the cracks.
Someone in the discussion thread hit the nail on the head when they pointed out that it’s easier for law enforcement to go after these cases than to do the hard work of solving actual violent crimes. There’s no messy investigation required, no complex detective work – just point, click, and prosecute based on location data.
The really insidious part is how this technology exploits a fundamental misunderstanding about privacy in public spaces. Too many people believe that the moment you step outside your front door, you’ve surrendered any right to privacy. That’s complete rubbish, and it’s exactly the kind of thinking that enables this surveillance overreach.
Yes, if you’re walking down Collins Street, random people might see you. But there’s a massive difference between being casually observed by a few strangers and having your every movement tracked, recorded, and stored in a database that can be accessed by anyone with the right credentials. The persistence and scale of modern surveillance transforms what should be anonymous public movement into something more like being followed around by a private investigator with perfect memory.
Here in Victoria, we’ve got our own growing network of these systems. Every time there’s a crime that captures public attention, politicians line up to promise more cameras, more tracking, more surveillance. They frame it as protecting us, but they never mention the infrastructure they’re building can just as easily be turned against us when our perfectly legal activities suddenly become inconvenient to those in power.
The technical capabilities are already there. Facial recognition that works even with masks (gait analysis is getting scary good). Cross-referencing between different surveillance systems. Integration with private data brokers who know more about your daily habits than your own family. We’re not heading toward a surveillance state – we’re already living in one.
What bothers me most is the complete lack of oversight or accountability. These systems are often run by private companies with minimal public input about where they’re deployed or how the data is used. There’s no meaningful democratic process around decisions that fundamentally alter the nature of public space and personal privacy.
The solution isn’t just better laws (though we desperately need those). We need to fundamentally reject the premise that safety requires total surveillance. We need to demand that our representatives explain exactly why tracking every citizen’s movements is necessary, and we need to hold them accountable when these systems are inevitably abused.
Until we start treating privacy as a collective good rather than an individual luxury, stories like this will keep happening. The technology will keep expanding, the justifications will keep shifting, and our basic freedoms will continue to erode one camera at a time.
The question isn’t whether you have something to hide. The question is whether you want to live in a society where your government tracks your every move just in case you might someday do something they disapprove of. Because that’s the world we’re building, one surveillance camera at a time.