r/deflock_CT

Leonardo US Cyber and Security Solutions, the American subsidiary of Leonardo, one of the world’s largest aerospace and defense conglomerates and a company that generates over $17 billion in annual revenue, has been developing and marketing a product called SignalTrace that it describes on its own website as a groundbreaking electronic signal intelligence system for law enforcement. What SignalTrace actually does is add sensors alongside existing automatic license plate readers, devices already deployed on street poles, highway overpasses, traffic lights, and police vehicles in thousands of cities and towns across the United States, that passively sweep up the Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and RFID signals continuously broadcast by every electronic device in any passing vehicle. The system captures the unique hardware identifier, called a MAC address, broadcast by each device, links together all the devices that regularly travel in the same vehicle, and correlates that entire bundle of device identifiers to the license plate and time-stamped location data captured simultaneously by the ALPR camera. The result is what Leonardo’s own marketing materials describe as an electronic fingerprint: a unique signature for each vehicle tied not just to its plate number, but to every phone, smartwatch, AirPod, fitness tracker, and car infotainment system carried by its occupants. Leonardo received US Patent 11,941,716 B2 for this system in March 2024, and its general manager Jason Laquatra stated publicly that the future of LPR advancements is reliant on enhancing LPR datasets with additional information from various electronic devices to find the individuals police are looking for.

What makes SignalTrace qualitatively different from conventional license plate readers, and genuinely more dangerous from a civil liberties standpoint, is the specific problem it was designed to solve: it can identify and track people even when the license plate is unknown, obscured, or switched. Leonardo’s own marketing materials describe this capability explicitly, noting that even if a suspect changes or removes a license plate, SignalTrace’s algorithms can still provide actionable intelligence by identifying the unique mix of devices they carry or use. That sentence should be read carefully, because what it means in practice is that the device identifiers in your pocket, your phone’s MAC address, your watch’s Bluetooth beacon, your AirPods passively broadcasting their presence to any nearby sensor, become a more persistent identifier than your license plate because you change your plate far less often than law enforcement catches someone who has deliberately changed or stolen one. The system is also designed to work without license plate readers at every collection site, meaning sensors can be deployed in locations that don’t have cameras at all, creating a coverage network built on signal collection alone. And because multiple devices in the same vehicle are linked together into a single correlated fingerprint, identifying any one device belonging to any one occupant effectively identifies all of them simultaneously. A passenger in your car carrying their phone has now linked their device identifier to your license plate in Leonardo’s dataset, whether either of you consented to that or not.

Leonardo’s defense is the same one the license plate reader industry has used for years: the system captures device signals but does not decrypt or read the contents of devices or their communications, framing it as analogous to how a plate reader captures a number without reading the driver’s name. That framing collapses under the slightest pressure. A MAC address is a unique hardware identifier that follows a device everywhere it goes, and when it’s correlated with a license plate at a specific location and time, then correlated again at the next location and time, then again and again across a city-wide or nationwide network of sensors, the result is a precise location history of a specific person, not an anonymous vehicle. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has documented for years that ALPR data alone, stripped of any identifying information, can reveal a person’s home address, workplace, medical appointments, religious attendance, political activity, and relationship patterns simply through the accumulation of timestamped location records. SignalTrace doesn’t just replicate that capability, it extends it to everyone in the vehicle, removes the license plate as a barrier to identification, and makes the fingerprint far harder to evade. There’s no existing federal law that specifically regulates the collection of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi identifiers from public roads, no opt-out mechanism, no notification requirement, and no warrant requirement for law enforcement access to data collected passively from public spaces. What Leonardo has built is a comprehensive personal surveillance infrastructure that’s already patented, already marketed to police departments, and already operating in communities across the country with essentially no legal framework governing how the data can be used, retained, or shared.

They didn’t put any effort into the Flock flags and nabbed the first car they found instead of the actual guilty party

Time to take the cameras down

Understand the case is complicated and long and so are these videos, These are only clips from the footage I had to cut down for length. I will be making the full, uncut sections available soon so everyone can review the evidence for themselves and reach their own conclusions if they are still unclear.

One of the most troubling aspects of this case is the timeline.

Investigators were using Flock camera data and tracking movements weeks before they ever re-interviewed the complaining witness. That raises an obvious question according to the flock data, how did investigators already appear to be pursuing a theory involving an alleged deadly weapon when the witness’s original 2023 interview reportedly contained no such allegation?

Also in that original interview, the witness identified a different person as the individual who verbally threatened him. There was no claim that eric had assaulted him with a deadly weapon. Yet when investigators later re-interviewed him, he appeared to immediately understand what they were referring to and changes his story to fit their reasons listed on the flock data.

The contrast with other witnesses is clear, Several witnesses reportedly had little or no idea why police were contacting them. Investigators had to refresh their memories while questioning them. Despite that, those witnesses consistently remembered one important detail: nobody pulled a knife.

Another issue that blatantly clear is the nature of the original allegation itself. According to the responding deputy, the incident was initially classified as harassment in September 29, 2023 but By the time investigators later pursued the matter in October 25, 2025 the statute of limitations period for that offense had already expired.

So if the original allegation could no longer be prosecuted, why was the witness being re-interviewed at all? What legitimate investigative purpose was being served at that stage?

The resulting investigation ultimately led to a police operation that could have ended with eric being seriously injured or killed. And yet nobody has been held accountable not the police nor the complaining witness or the other witnesses.

For months we have been requesting the records, reports, body camera footage, and related materials. The agencies involved have repeatedly delayed releasing them despite the investigation being closed. If the evidence supports their actions, then the public should be allowed to see it.

I am not asking anyone to simply take our side. Review the footage. Compare the interviews. Look at what witnesses originally said and what they later said. Then decide for yourself.

If you believe in transparency and accountability, consider submitting public records requests, contacting the department (Houston Police Department) or asking public officials why these records remain withheld. Public confidence in law enforcement depends on transparency, and the public deserves access to the evidence so they can evaluate the facts for themselves.

TL;DR: The records show that investigators were using Flock camera data to track Eric’s movements weeks before they re-interviewed the complaining witness. The witness’s original 2023 statement did not include a claim of a deadly weapon used and identified a different person as making verbal threats.

Multiple other witnesses told investigators that nobody pulled a knife. The original incident was classified as harassment, yet years later it was pursued as a felony investigation.

Full, uncut footage and supporting records will be released so the public can review the evidence and decide for themselves. The big question is why would they do this to an innocent person? Or is it just normal police work.

Last month, the Dayton Police Department announced the city would no longer use Flock’s data after it found more than 7,000 cases of searches relating to immigration enforcement made by outside entities. Cities officials called the cases “egregious violations of policy” that prohibited data from the devices from being used for immigration enforcement or shared with agencies “whose primary purpose is to enforce immigration laws.” Dayton appropriated an extra $30,000 for an audit of Flock camera data logs.

"The practical takeaway is simple.

Surveillance technology cannot scale on trust borrowed from public safety slogans.

It has to earn trust in the details.

The next city considering Flock, or any similar platform, should ask one basic question before installation: if residents demand that this system stop tomorrow, can we actually stop it?"

"When Caldwell police first asked the City Council to approve the use of Flock cameras in 2023, Police Chief Rex Ingram made it clear that the need for the cameras was urgent, but there would be limits on how it is used.

“This technology, if approved, is not going to be used to spy on our people to look up license plates,” Ingram said at the time.

“We don’t have some room in the police station where we have a bunch of cameras up just watching cars drive through the city.”

But that appears to be exactly what’s happening.

The Statesman this month took a look inside the Caldwell Police Department’s Real Time Information Center. The center lies just beyond a corridor of cubicles, past a locked door in a small, windowless room.

“If I could take the cameras out of the city, I would take them out right now,” Mayor Phillips told the Statesman during a phone interview. “I definitely think there are advantages, and we have terrific officers working with these tools, but when we’re looking at the budget, these Flock cameras are not an expense that we need at this time.”

deflock.org