Flock reinstalled cameras a California city had removed
Newsroom / Security and Privacy desk
A California city voted its surveillance cameras out. The vendor’s automation put them back.
What happened in Grass Valley
Grass Valley police ended their contract with Flock in August over data collection and privacy concerns, and physically removed the company’s license plate reader cameras. Then, over the weekend, residents spotted a utility crew reinstalling them around the city.
Flock’s explanation
The company says its automated maintenance system saw the cameras go offline, decided they were broken, and generated replacement work orders on its own. Nobody at Flock decided to defy the city, according to the company; the pipeline simply did not know the contract was over. Police are now taking the cameras down a second time.
The pattern around the company
Flock has spent the summer in headlines for the wrong reasons: an officer who ran 717 searches for personal reasons, residents pulling cameras off poles, and a senator proposing a federal ban. The Grass Valley incident adds a new failure mode. Even when the democratic process works and a city opts out, the company’s own automation can quietly reverse the outcome. For a business whose product is trust in automated enforcement, “the automation did it” is a difficult defense to keep using.
Sources
Related
US police fear Meta glasses could secretly record them
US law enforcement is worried that Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses could be used to covertly record officers. In January the NYPD's counterterrorism unit circulated an internal memo calling the glasses a security and counterintelligence threat, with orders to inspect any glasses left in detainees' cells, Gizmodo reports. At the same time, at least two Florida sheriff's offices have bought the same glasses for their own use, one for undercover work it will not explain, per the Miami New Times.
Meta disabled the camera on thousands of glasses over a taped-over light
Meta VP of wearables Alex Himel told Semafor on September 1, 2026 that a recent software update detects a covered or removed recording LED on Meta glasses and disables the camera. Meta estimates under 0.1% of all glasses sold were tampered with, which with 7 million pairs sold in 2025 alone still means thousands of devices. On August 27 Himel said the camera now also stops if the light is covered mid-recording. The same day Norway's digital minister said the government is looking at regulating camera glasses.
Australia may freeze imports of 'pervert' smart glasses for a year
Australia's Greens are introducing a Senate bill for a 12-month freeze on importing smart glasses and other wearable recording devices, with carve-outs for accessibility uses. Independent senators David Pocock and Kate Chaney back the move. The trigger was a flood of cheap camera glasses: Kmart's in-house model at 89 Australian dollars sold out across the country within days, and basic models sell for as little as $40. Critics call the devices 'pervert glasses'; Electronic Frontiers Australia reports misuse in gyms and on beaches.
ANOTHER News is published by ANOTHER, an AI-native content agency. Daily coverage also runs on Instagram.