PSA: If there's still a "ghost" Flock camera on your street, here is how we clean up this abandoned surveillance trash
Hey neighbors,
As many of us remember, Evanston officially cut ties with Flock Safety after state audits busted them for illegally feeding local license plate data to federal agencies like U.S. Customs and Border Protection, violating our local ordinances and state privacy laws. The city told them to pack up and get out, and even had to issue cease-and-desists and slap plastic sheeting over rogue cameras when the company sneakily reinstalled units without permission.
Yet, some of these dead pieces of infrastructure are still physically bolted to poles across our neighborhoods (like the ghost hardware lingering near Church and McCormick).
A quick heads-up on the hardware itself: With the solar panel still attached, those casings can very well still house active internal batteries and cellular modems pinging away, even if the city cut ties with the network. These units are completely self-contained. They run entirely off that solar panel and beam data over cellular LTE, meaning they don't actually need to be hardwired into any local municipal infrastructure to stay powered on. Given how chaotic the removal process has been, leaving that solar rig up means it's either active zombie tech or just lazy cleanup.
If you've got one of these eyesores staring down your street, we shouldn't have to just look at abandoned corporate surveillance gear. Public works and our elected officials need to finish the job and haul them down before they become permanent neighborhood fixtures.
I’ve put together a master list of the key local contacts below. If you have a Flock system lingering in your neighborhood and want it gone, drop a comment with the exact location. Don't just use https://deflock.org/ make sure it's physically there. If we could all collaborate as a collective, we could push harder on the city to do something about it. Let's clean up our streets.
Who to email:
As of 5:23 am 8/18, City Manager Luke Stowe has already responded to my email I sent him last night and is asking his staff to review my reported location.
If it's at all helpful this is the message I sent to each email.
Abandoned Flock ALPR Hardware at Church and Bennett Avenue – Needs Immediate Removal
I'm writing regarding an unauthorized and abandoned Flock Safety automated license plate reader camera still mounted on the pole near Church Street and Bennett Avenue. (approximate coordinates: 42.04826, -87.71110).
Given that Evanston officially terminated its contract with Flock and previously had to crack down on unauthorized rogue hardware reinstallations, it is unacceptable that this dead equipment is still hanging up in the public right-of-way.
Please have the appropriate department, whether Public Works or Legal, force the vendor to physically remove this abandoned surveillance hardware immediately, or have city crews take it down. Evanston cut ties with this invasive tech for a reason; residents shouldn't have to look at lingering ghost infrastructure from a terminated vendor.
I'd appreciate an update on when this pole will be cleared.