Surveillance
License-plate readers, data brokers, facial recognition and the laws that do and don’t limit them. Our ongoing investigation into who collects data on Americans, who buys it and how to opt out.
- Big Brother on Every Corner:How Flock Safety Built America’s Largest Covert Surveillance Network
- How a License Plate Becomes a Person: Inside the Correlation Pipeline That Connects Cameras, DMVs and Insurers
- Buying Around the Constitution: How Governments Use Data Brokers to Sidestep Privacy Protections Without Breaking the Law
- How to Opt Out of Driver Data Tracking in 2026: The Complete Privacy Guide
- Who Consented? How Alexa, Samsung TVs and Flock Fit Into America’s Recording Laws
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Who Consented? How Alexa, Samsung TVs and Flock Fit Into America’s Recording Laws
An Amazon Echo on a kitchen counter, a Samsung television in a living room and a Flock Safety camera on a neighborhood…
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Scored by a Garbage Truck: Inside Dallas’s AI “Blight” Surveillance Program
The city mounted 100 cameras on sanitation trucks, flagged 21,000 properties in four months, and set a target of 5,200 enforcement notices…
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Flock Became Surveillance’s Bunker Hill. What That Costs a Company Valued at $8.4 Billion
In February, Denver told Flock Safety it would not renew the contract for the license plate readers used by its police department.…
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Florida Pulled the Cameras Off Its Highways. The State Still Sells Your Driver Data.
The Florida Department of Transportation revoked every permit it had issued for automated license plate readers in state highway rights-of-way on Monday,…
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Ordinary Wi-Fi Routers Identified People With 99.5% Accuracy. Is 6G Next?
A German research team has shown that a passive listener sitting within range of an ordinary Wi-Fi network can recognize individual people…
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Cities Are Dropping Flock’s Cameras. Many Are Replacing Them With Axon’s.
City councils from Syracuse to Denver have spent the past year voting down contracts with Flock Safety, the Atlanta company whose automated…
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No Terms of Service for Your Face: The Constitution Never Wrote Down a Right to Privacy, and Data Intelligence Found the Gap
Consumers understand the bargain they strike with Verizon, Google and Alexa. No equivalent agreement exists between a driver and a license plate…
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Buying Around the Constitution: How Governments Use Data Brokers to Sidestep Privacy Protections Without Breaking the Law
Federal and state agencies are increasingly obtaining Americans’ personal data not by passing new surveillance laws or obtaining warrants, but by purchasing…
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When the Shelf Knows Your Name: How Kroger’s Digital Pricing and Data Surveillance Could Intertwine
Two of Kroger’s most significant modernization efforts have, until recently, been discussed largely in isolation. One is the rollout of electronic shelf…
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How to Opt Out of Driver Data Tracking in 2026: The Complete Privacy Guide
Your car may already be sharing your driving behavior, location history and insurance-risk profile with third parties — often without explicit consent.…