Flocking to dystopia, Part 2: Bill to regulate tech fails in Colorado Capitol

Flocking to dystopia, Part 2: Bill to regulate tech fails in Colorado CapitolFriday, May 22, 2026First Thing: Thread video that went viral last weekhttps://www.threads.com/@mikenetson/post/DYVnK16kY5O/be-aware-beware/Eyes Off Colorado: Local cybersecurity experts push back against Flock license plate readers“Right now, it's completely unfettered access to the location and personal privacy of every Coloradan.” – Andrew Gentry, Golden-based cybersecurity professionalA bill to regulate Flock and its fleet of Automatic License Plate Reader (ALPRs) cameras died in the Colorado Senate. Sponsor Judy Amabile of Boulder said her fellow lawmakers wouldn’t vote for even the simplest regulations amid harsh opposition from law enforcement.Read more from The Colorado Sun.After this development, we’re releasing our full interview with Andrew Gentry, quoted above. In it, Gentry outlines his concerns with the technology itself and with Flock in particular, includingFlock’s documented security vulnerabilities: “ When companies are actively trying to hide their flaws or silence people asking questions, that's usually a sign that there's some kind of other interest involved or negligence or laziness or some combination of the three.”They’re collecting a lot more than just pictures of our license plates, Gentry says: facial recognition, age, race, etc. Every time you pass a camera, data is collected……. And sold to private companies that train AI models on it. Those companies then sell products back to police, promising to “solve crime with the click of a button” and, even scarier, predict who will commit a crime before it happens.Learn more + get involvedGentry founded Eyes Off Colorado to raise awareness about local use of Flock cameras. The organization grades communities using Flock based on their policies around transparency, data storage and sharing and the amount of cameras in the community.Here’s the local report card:Boulder: DLongmont: CGolden: F