Montana Senate candidate Seth Bodnar, an independent, released a video on Monday that features him shooting a Flock Safety camera, making him the latest candidate to oppose the controversial automatic license plate readers.
Flock cameras have been positioned as a marquee issue by some candidates in the midterm elections, as nationwide resistance to the artificial intelligence cameras grows.
“Flock off, man!” Bodnar said in the video. “Are you tired of security cameras watching your every move? Yeah, me too. I got a message we can send to them. Getting groceries? They’re watching. Building a new deck. Going to church. Seeing a doctor? They’re watching. Buying ammo for the season. They’re watching.”
Unlike other traffic cameras positioned to catch specific violations, such as not paying a toll, Flock’s cameras collect information about every vehicle that passes them, including license plates and other identifying characteristics. Flock has more than 120,000 cameras active across 49 states and has struck deals with thousands of municipalities.
Bodnar also took aim at the backend of Flock, alleging the company is selling the data collected by the cameras.
“Now the whole thing isn’t just creepy as hell — it’s also part of a massive economy designed to buy and sell our personal data,” he said. “Now we’ve known for years that big tech follows us online, but now these Flock cameras are literally tracking our every move, and all this data needs a place to live in the cloud.”
Flock has repeatedly affirmed that it does not sell or access user data and emphasized that the law enforcement agencies that contract with the company own the data collected by the cameras. Bodnar connects the company’s need to store data in cloud services to the rise in data center construction.
“That’s why they want to build data centers right in our backyards? They are all getting rich, we’re getting screwed, and nobody is holding them accountable,” he said.
Flock contracts with Amazon Web Services to store data, but privacy advocates have raised concerns about how long data is stored in the cloud, who can access it, and what Flock does with it.
DEFLOCK STARTED FROM ONE MAN’S CURIOSITY — NOT FLOCK CAMERAS ARE A MIDTERM ISSUE
Bodnar then rips his opponent, Kurt Alme, a Republican, for not taking a stance on the ALPRs. The independent then says he will not do the same “by a long shot” before shooting a Flock camera positioned next to a bag of flour, for effect.
According to recent polling, Bodnar trails his competitor by 8 percentage points in the open Senate race to replace Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT). Democrat Alani Bankhead trails Alme and Bodnar by double digits, as a Democrat is not likely to succeed in a state that heavily favored President Donald Trump in 2020 and 2024.