2025-12-09 - The NFC Research Archive - Flock Uses Overseas Gig Workers to Build Its Surveillance AI (Wired)

Flock the automatic license plate reader and AIpowered camera company uses overseas workers from Upwork to train its machine learning algorithms with training material telling workers how to review and categorize footage including images people and vehicles in the United States according to material reviewed by 404 Media that was accidentally exposed by the company

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The findings bring up questions about who exactly has access to footage collected by Flock surveillance cameras and where people reviewing the footage may be based Flock has become a pervasive technology in the US with its cameras present in thousands of communities that cops use every day to investigate things like carjackings Local police have also performed numerous lookups for ICE in the system

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Companies that use AI or machine learning regularly turn to overseas workers to train their algorithms often because the labor is cheaper than hiring domestically But the nature of Flocks businesscreating a surveillance system that constantly monitors US residents movementsmeans that footage might be more sensitive than other AI training jobs

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Flocks cameras continuously scan the license plate color brand and model of all vehicles that drive by Law enforcement are then able to search cameras nationwide to see where else a vehicle has driven Authorities typically dig through this data without a warrant leading the American Civil Liberties Union and Electronic Frontier Foundation to recently sue a city blanketed in nearly 500 Flock cameras

Broadly Flock uses AI or machine learning to automatically detect license plates vehicles and people including what clothes they are wearing from camera footage A Flock patent also mentions cameras detecting race

Multiple tipsters pointed 404 Media to an exposed online panel which showed various metrics associated with Flocks AI training

It included figures on annotations completed and annotator tasks remaining in queue with annotations being the notes workers add to reviewed footage to help train AI algorithms Tasks include categorizing vehicle makes colors and types transcribing license plates and audio tasks Flock recently started advertising a feature that will detect screaming The panel showed workers sometimes completed thousands upon thousands of annotations over two day periods

The exposed panel included a list of people tasked with annotating Flocks footage Taking those names 404 Media found some were located in the Philippines according to their LinkedIn and other online profiles

Many of these people were employed through Upwork according to the exposed material Upwork is a gig and freelance work platform where companies can hire designers and writers or pay for AI services according to Upworks website

The tipsters also pointed to several publicly available Flock presentations which explained in more detail how workers were to categorize the footage It is not clear what specific camera footage Flocks AI workers are reviewing But screenshots included in the worker guides show numerous images from vehicles with US plates including in New York Michigan Florida New Jersey and California Other images include road signs clearly showing the footage is taken from inside the US and one image contains an advertisement for a specific law firm in Atlanta