While backlash against Flock Safety and its automated license plate reader cameras is spreading across the country, the company still has one powerful fan.
President Donald Trump voiced his support for the technology over the weekend.
“I sort of like them because of that, because of law enforcement, but some people don’t,” Trump told reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One, according to The Washington Post. “They think it’s an infringement. I like them.”
Trump now joins the ranks of Doctor Doom and Darth Vader in endorsing the controversial technology.
Companies like Flock and Axon have become known in recent years for selling automated license plate reader systems to law enforcement. The systems scan license plates as vehicles pass, collecting vehicle information along with the time and location they were spotted. Police can then search that data during investigations.
Privacy advocates, however, warn that the cameras collect location data on millions of people who are not suspected of crimes, often without a warrant, probable cause, or reasonable suspicion.
There have also been reports of the systems leading to mistakes and rampant misuse by law enforcement.
Trump’s comments also come at an interesting time. With the midterm elections less than two months away, he appears to be taking a side in what has become an increasingly divisive local issue.
An August YouGov survey found that 46% of respondents opposed law enforcement using the technology in their communities, while 38% supported it.
Law enforcement agencies around the country, including the Los Angeles Police Department, have ended or suspended their Flock contracts.
This is far from the first unpopular tech position Trump has taken during his second term.
The administration has signed numerous executive orders aimed at speeding up the construction of AI infrastructure and data centers in the name of national and economic security. Still, these proposed projects have faced local opposition over electricity costs, pollution, water use, and noise.
And this weekend, Trump also pushed back on calls from some of the biggest names in AI to slow the pace of development.
“Well, I’ll say this: we’re leading China in AI. We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI wins,” the president said Sunday when asked about slowing AI development or increasing regulation during a golf tournament in Ireland, The Hill reports.
“And we can put guardrails, we can do this and that, but I think you have a lot of negative forces that are bringing it up that shouldn’t be bringing it up, and they’re bringing up things that won’t happen,” he added.
Those comments came after Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei called for the industry to slow the pace at which it develops more capable frontier models. His rivals OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and xAI CEO Elon Musk publicly backed his proposal.
This follows a wave of warnings from researchers inside leading AI labs that increasingly capable systems could pose serious risks if development continues faster than companies can understand or control them, including human extinction.
Trump was asked last Thursday whether he shared those concerns.
“No, I don’t have any,” Trump told reporters, according to The Hill. “I have concerns that if we don’t win AI, we’re going to be put in a very bad position. We are leading China right now by a pretty good period, I would say a year, which is, you know, considered a lot.”
It remains to be seen whether Trump’s increasingly unpopular takes on tech policy have any impact on elections this year.
