Flock cameras are surveilling hundreds of public school campuses across the country | Latest Tech News
First privateness hawks and motorists had been outraged over Flock cameras. Now, college students are up in arms over the AI-powered surveillance, which has been rolled out in at least 100 school districts across the country, according to an analysis of authorities procurement information by nonprofit news group The74.
“It seems like the government’s trying to watch you more and more,” Gabe Sayer, a 17-year-old high school senior from Loveland, Colorado, told The Post. “It makes me feel a little unsafe.”
Gabe Sayer, 17, has confronted his school district and metropolis council about the use of Flock cameras in the neighborhood. Courtesy of Gabe Sayer
After 5 Flock cameras had been put in in colleges across his district, Sayer organized a petition against them and launched DeFlock Loveland, a high-schooler-led initiative urging the school board and metropolis council to take down cameras.
“I was just so disgusted,” said Sayer, who believes the Flock cams violate the Fourth Amendment rights of college students and neighborhood members by subjecting them to unreasonable ranges of surveillance. “I decided that we had to at least try and get rid of them in Loveland.”
His Change.org petition — one of a number of launched by college students across the US — has thus far, garnered 719 signatures. “An America where companies like Flock are allowed to conduct widespread surveillance of American citizens is an America where our liberties are dangerously in question,” it asserts.
Flock markets instantly to colleges on its company web site, where they boast about giving “peace of mind” to establishments from “K-12 schools to major universities” by building a “virtual perimeter” around campuses with license plate readers, video cameras, cell items, gunshot detectors, and a cell app for employees.
Its cameras are more controversial than commonplace surveillance gear because they use AI to generate databases of data about people’s actions.
“What are you doing to a whole generation of students that basically have to be resigned to the fact that what they do is constantly surveilled? There’s sort of a democratic, philosophical question in that,” said Sophia Cope, employees attorney at the nonprofit civil liberties watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco.
Sophia Cope, a employees attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, worries applied sciences like Flock train children to settle for surveillance. eef.org
When contacted for remark, the Loveland school district told The Post that the cameras, which had been put in in 2024, had been disconnected — not due to neighborhood pushback but because “the district determined that the amount of money being spent on the cameras was not providing the service that [they] had hoped to get.”
But the cameras still stay up because they “are the property of Flock and it’s up to their determination to remove the equipment,” a spokesperson said.
Flock claims it might probably “stop threats before they reach the entrance” of campuses. Bloomberg via Getty Images
Sayer continues to petition his metropolis council to take down the cameras they operate, and a spokesperson confirmed ongoing conversations with him and other activists.
American colleges had large surveillance before the proliferation of AI. In 2021, 93% of public colleges had security cameras. But AI-enhanced security systems pose distinctive issues. They’re not just passively recording; they’re more and more automated, searchable, and interconnected.
The report by The74 discovered that one Texas school district granted US Border Patrol access to their Flock data. Another Texas district’s eight cameras had been searched by 3,100 different law enforcement companies from around the country more than 733,000 instances in just a single month between December 2025 and January 2026.
But Flock says their systems are a means to keep children protected from predators and mass shooters. The company claims to give you the chance to “stop threats before they reach the entrance” by scanning for banned guests and checking on the id of suspicious autos.The company didn’t reply to The Post’s request for remark.
Gabe Sayer opposes Flock cameras on his campus because he believes they violate his 4th Amendment rights. Courtesy of Gabe Sayer
Flock advertises their companies to campuses and school districts on their web site. Flock
Adam Scott Wandt, affiliate professor of public coverage at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Post that “the ability of Flock systems to help fight crime in America is legitimate. It works.” But, he famous, “The problem is, with Flock, we are unsure of the boundaries.”
Who precisely can access the data collected by Flock cameras on school campuses isn’t always solely clear. Critics fear that colleges risk changing into surveillance satellites for police departments and other authorities companies.
Flock isn’t the only company infusing AI into school surveillance. Other corporations such as ZeroEyes and Omnialert offer their companies to districts, as properly, sometimes integrating instantly into current security systems.
Flock’s web site advertises drones that can be utilized to surveil lively shooters on school campuses. Flock
More than 100 school districts around the country use Flock security cameras, according to a current analysis. AP
Omnialert makes use of AI surveillance to detect weapons and claims to have flagged over 3,000 “AI gun detection events” in 2025. But they landed in sizzling water last fall after a detection system at Kenwood High School in Baltimore brought about police to method a high school scholar with weapons drawn.
The surprised teen, who was searched by cops called to the scene, turned out to be armed with only a Doritos bag.
“Our system operated as designed — it identified a possible threat, elevated it for human review, and relied on authorized safety personnel for final determination,” the company told The Post. “The principal mistakenly escalated the situation after the school security staff dismissed it.”
According to Kenneth Trump (no relation to the president), a security marketing consultant who has labored in school security for 40 years, the issue isn’t essentially the technology itself but how shortly it’s been rolled out.
Kenneth Trump says that Flock cameras are interesting to school officers under strain to deal with security issues. School Security
“We’re not quite ready for prime time,” he told The Post.
He also famous that cameras and AI are no substitute for outdated school means of conserving children protected.
“You could put a million dollars’ worth of technology in one school and it’s still not going to be as effective as having adults who are visible in the hallways, engaged with kids, building relationships, actively supervising,” he warned.
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