By New York Post (U.S.) | Created at 2026-09-08 19:06:39 | Updated at 2026-09-08 20:03:49
1 hour ago
First privacy hawks and motorists were outraged over Flock cameras. Now, students are up in arms over the AI-powered surveillance, which has been rolled out in at least 100 school districts across the country, according to an analysis of government procurement records by nonprofit news organization The74.
“It seems like the government’s trying to watch you more and more,” Gabe Sayer, a 17-year-old high school senior from Loveland, Colorado, told The Post. “It makes me feel a little unsafe.”
After five Flock cameras were installed in schools across his district, Sayer organized a petition against them and launched DeFlock Loveland, a high-schooler-led initiative urging the school board and city council to take down cameras.
“I was just so disgusted,” said Sayer, who believes the Flock cams violate the Fourth Amendment rights of students and community members by subjecting them to unreasonable levels of surveillance. “I decided that we had to at least try and get rid of them in Loveland.”
His Change.org petition — one of several launched by students across the US — has thus far, garnered 719 signatures. “An America where companies like Flock are allowed to conduct widespread surveillance of American citizens is an America where our liberties are dangerously in question,” it asserts.
Flock markets directly to schools on its company website, where they boast about giving “peace of mind” to institutions from “K-12 schools to major universities” by building a “virtual perimeter” around campuses with license plate readers, video cameras, mobile units, gunshot detectors, and a mobile app for staff.
Its cameras are more controversial than standard surveillance equipment because they use AI to generate databases of information about people’s movements.
“What are you doing to a whole generation of students that basically have to be resigned to the fact that what they do is constantly surveilled? There’s sort of a democratic, philosophical question in that,” said Sophia Cope, staff attorney at the nonprofit civil liberties watchdog group Electronic Frontier Foundation, based in San Francisco.
When contacted for comment, the Loveland school district told The Post that the cameras, which were installed in 2024, had been disconnected — not due to community pushback but because “the district determined that the amount of money being spent on the cameras was not providing the service that [they] had hoped to get.”
But the cameras still remain up because they “are the property of Flock and it’s up to their determination to remove the equipment,” a spokesperson said.
Sayer continues to petition his city council to take down the cameras they operate, and a spokesperson confirmed ongoing conversations with him and other activists.
American schools had massive surveillance before the proliferation of AI. In 2021, 93% of public schools had security cameras. But AI-enhanced security systems pose unique concerns. They’re not just passively recording; they’re increasingly automated, searchable, and interconnected.
The report by The74 found that one Texas school district granted US Border Patrol access to their Flock data. Another Texas district’s eight cameras were searched by 3,100 different law enforcement agencies from around the country more than 733,000 times in just a single month between December 2025 and January 2026.
But Flock says their systems are a way to keep kids safe from predators and mass shooters. The company claims to be able to “stop threats before they reach the entrance” by scanning for banned visitors and checking on the identity of suspicious vehicles.The company did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
Adam Scott Wandt, associate professor of public policy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told The Post that “the ability of Flock systems to help fight crime in America is legitimate. It works.” But, he noted, “The problem is, with Flock, we are unsure of the boundaries.”
Who exactly can access the data collected by Flock cameras on school campuses isn’t always entirely clear. Critics worry that schools risk becoming surveillance satellites for police departments and other government agencies.
Flock isn’t the only company infusing AI into school surveillance. Other companies such as ZeroEyes and Omnialert offer their services to districts, as well, sometimes integrating directly into existing security systems.
Omnialert uses AI surveillance to detect guns and claims to have flagged over 3,000 “AI gun detection events” in 2025. But they landed in hot water last fall after a detection system at Kenwood High School in Baltimore caused police to approach a high school student with guns drawn.
The stunned teen, who was searched by cops called to the scene, turned out to be armed with only a Doritos bag.
“Our system operated as designed — it identified a possible threat, elevated it for human review, and relied on authorized safety personnel for final determination,” the company told The Post. “The principal mistakenly escalated the situation after the school security staff dismissed it.”
According to Kenneth Trump (no relation to the president), a security consultant who has worked in school safety for 40 years, the issue isn’t necessarily the technology itself but how quickly it’s been rolled out.
“We’re not quite ready for prime time,” he told The Post.
He also noted that cameras and AI are no substitute for old school means of keeping kids safe.
“You could put a million dollars’ worth of technology in one school and it’s still not going to be as effective as having adults who are visible in the hallways, engaged with kids, building relationships, actively supervising,” he warned.
