Flock Safety，这家由人工智能驱动的交通摄像头公司，让从乔什·霍利到伯尼·桑德斯的所有人都感到愤怒，可能正面临财务压力：路透社周五报道称，该公司计划裁减约18%的员工，即270名工人。
Flock Safety, the AI-powered traffic camera company that has everyone from Josh Hawley to Bernie Sanders angry, might be feeling the heat financially: Reuters reported Friday that the company is planning to cut roughly 18 percent of its staff, or 270 workers.
Flock在全国运营着12万台摄像头的网络，是该国最大的自动车牌识别系统（ALPR）制造商。正如我之前报道的那样，它也正面临一波巨大的反对浪潮，部分原因在于许多警察被发现滥用这项技术。
Flock, which operates a network of 120,000 cameras nationwide, is the largest maker of automated license plate readers (ALPRs) in the country. It’s also, as I previously reported, the target of a massive wave of backlash, in part because so many police officers have been found abusing the technology.
总部位于奥克兰的倡导组织Secure Justice，该组织追踪市政层面的自动车牌识别系统使用情况，表示在8月份，取消Flock合同的城镇和城市数量比以往任何时候都多：自2021年以来已有214个城镇和城市终止了与Flock的合作，其中90个是在2026年8月份取消的。（至少有三个城镇报告称，在地方官员终止合同后，Flock重新安装或重新激活了他们的摄像头。）
The Oakland-based advocacy group Secure Justice, which tracks automated license plate reader use on the municipal level, says that in the month of August more towns and cities cancelled their Flock contracts than ever before: of the 214 cities that have dropped Flock since 2021, 90 did so in August 2026. (At least three towns have reported that Flock reinstalled or reactivated their cameras after local officials ended their contracts.)
Flock可能陷入财务困境的最初迹象出现在9月，当时公司向员工提供了自愿离职的买断方案。一封内部邮件被共享，其中向愿意离职的Flock员工提供了“丰厚”的遣散费方案。Flock估值超过80亿美元，但随着城镇和县陆续取消其合同，该公司可能无法实现今年的收入目标。
The first signs that Flock might be in money trouble came in September, when the company offered voluntary buyouts to employees. An internal email shared with offered a “generous” severance package to Flock employees willing to quit. Flock, which is worth more than $8 billion, may not meet its revenue goals this year as towns and counties cancel its contracts left and right.
除了潜在的财务问题，Flock目前还面临日益增长的法律审查：本周早些时候，俄克拉荷马州的一名联邦法官裁定，其技术侵犯了一名女性的第四修正案权利，原因是一名治安官副手使用ALPRs搜索了她一个月的位置历史。这是首次有法官就ALPR搜索的合宪性作出裁决，但不具备约束力的先例效力。
In addition to potential financial problems, Flock is now facing growing legal scrutiny: Earlier this week, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that its technology violated a woman’s Fourth Amendment rights, after a sheriff’s deputy used ALPRs to search a month’s worth of her location history. This marks one of the first times a judge has ruled on the constitutionality of ALPR searches, but does not create a binding precedent.
正如ALPR技术的工作方式所示……使用这些系统的警官可以访问在ALPR摄像头网络内被捕捉到的所有车辆的持续更新的位置历史，”法官Sara E. Hill在她的裁决中写道。“这是一种不分青红皂白的大规模监控。”
“By virtue of how ALPR technology works…officers using these systems have access to a continuously updated location history for all vehicles caught on ALPR cameras within the network,” Judge Sara E. Hill wrote in her ruling. “This is a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance.”