Flock planned to use dashcams installed in hundreds of thousands Uber, Lyft, and delivery drivers’ vehicles to scan license plates those drivers travelled passed, essentially turning Uber and Lyft drivers into roaming surveillance vehicles, according to a Flock presentation shared with 404 Media.

The document provides more details on Flock’s planned partnership with Nexar, a popular dashcam company. 404 Media first revealed the intended partnership last August when multiple sources provided information on the plan. The presentation shows Flock was actively pitching this partnership, and its use of Uber and Lyft drivers, to potential customers right around the time 404 Media reported on it.

Flock told 404 Media in an email it never executed the partnership with Nexar. But the presentation still shows Flock’s ambitious plan to conscript rideshare and delivery drivers to collect license plate data for its network. It is not clear whether Uber or Lyft, or drivers working for those apps, would have been aware of the data collection.

“Hundreds of Commercial Business and HOA [home owners associations] in GA [Georgia] are part of the network,” the presentation, written by Flock to present to the Georgia Office of the Attorney General last August, reads. “Plus Nexar partnership which includes 350k Uber/Lyft and other delivery service devices.”

Jason Hunyar, a Dunwoody, Georgia, resident who obtained the presentation through a public records request, shared the document with 404 Media.

Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras are usually stationary cameras installed on tall poles that constantly scan the license plate, color, make, and brand of every vehicle that drives past. The Nexar partnership would have made those data collection efforts mobile. Axon, the law enforcement contracting giant that also sells ALPR cameras, sells some of its cameras to be installed in police officers’ roaming cars. Vigilant Solutions and the Digital Recognition Network (DRN), two ALPR companies now owned by Motorola, perform similar license plate data collection through cameras in vehicles belonging to repossession agencies.

Nexar sells various different models of dashcams providing front, cabin, and rear views, and already can provide “clear license plate capture with Full HD video,” according to its website. Nexar markets the cameras to rideshare drivers and also “commuters,” “long-distance drivers,” and “casual drivers.”

In September, 404 Media reported that a hacker broke into Nexar and accessed a database of terabytes of video recordings taken by customers’ cameras. Those included footage of people driving around sensitive Department of Defense locations.

Flock has explored obtaining other unusual datasets too. Last May, 404 Media reported Flock was building a massive people lookup tool that would use hacked data to “jump from LPR to person,” according to leaked audio. Flock scrapped those plans after 404 Media’s coverage and internal pressure.

Neither Uber nor Lyft responded to a request for comment. Neither did Nexar.

In May, 404 Media reported a company called BusPatrol, that has cameras installed in tens of thousands of school buses, plans to turn those cameras into ALPRs and give access to that data to law enforcement.

SAP, one of the world’s biggest software companies, suspended most travel and hiring last month because of AI’s soaring cost, with exceptions only being made for AI-related travel or hires, according to an internal SAP email obtained by 404 Media. 

Bloomberg reported on the email and the freezes in July, but a current SAP employee said the bans are still in effect. The employee said the company had a global employee meeting recently where this was brought up again. They added SAP is currently rolling out a newly created AI tool to the entire company “which I can only imagine massively increases the costs.” 404 Media granted the source anonymity to protect them from retaliation.

The email highlights how companies both big and small are coming to grips with the reality of AI’s cost. Rather than being a massive cost saver, in some cases companies are throttling employees’ AI use as it spirals out of control, and scrambling to find other ways to keep costs down.

A handful of cities across the U.S. have ditched Flock’s automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras and immediately replaced them with equivalent systems from law enforcement contracting giant Axon, according to local media reports and government documents from around the country. Axon, for example, advertises AI-powered cameras that attach to an existing streetlamp and are designed to completely blend in with their surroundings, and also collects license plate data with cameras installed inside police officers’ patrol vehicles.

We start this week with Joseph’s article about Samuel Tunick, the man charged with allegedly wiping his phone before DHS officials could search it. It’s a wild case with a lot to unpack. After the break, Jason tells us all about a TikTok Shop scheme powered by AI. In the subscribers-only section, we talk about possibly the dumbest AI tool ever made.

Listen to the weekly podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. Become a paid subscriber for access to this episode's bonus content and to power our journalism. If you become a paid subscriber, check your inbox for an email from our podcast host Transistor for a link to the subscribers-only version! You can also add that subscribers feed to your podcast app of choice and never miss an episode that way. The email should also contain the subscribers-only unlisted YouTube link for the extended video version too. It will also be in the show notes in your podcast player.

• ⁠You're Invited: 404 Media's Third Anniversary Live Podcast and Party!⁠
• ⁠‘The Government Hopes To Set a Precedent’: An Interview With the Man Charged for Allegedly Wiping His GrapheneOS Phone⁠
• ⁠Inside an AI TikTok Shop Slop Factory That Shills Supplements Recalled By the FDA⁠
• ⁠Google Earth’s New AI Lets Anyone Fabricate Completely Bullshit Satellite Images⁠

A series of issues in Apple’s web browser engine — the tech underlying all browsers on iOS — means that Apple’s iCloud Private Relay tool, which is supposed to hide a user’s IP address, in many cases doesn’t actually work. Instead, the issues mean a malicious attacker can set up a website to learn a Private Relay user’s real IP address, or that many websites have also already collected this information incidentally. The issues also impact OnionBrowser, an iOS app for browsing the web through the Tor anonymity network, the researchers who discovered the issues say.

The Private Relay leak is the second issue to recently impact Apple’s paid-for privacy products. Last month 404 Media reported a bug in Apple’s Hide My Email feature was actually revealing peoples’ real email addresses. Apple knew about that issue for more than a year before fixing it.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) bought access to what it described as more than a billion airline ticketing records, related to not just U.S. domestic flights or those landing in the country, but also flights between foreign countries, according to SEC documents obtained by 404 Media. A group of the world’s airlines, including Delta, United, and American, previously sold the data under the company name ARC; that is where the SEC bought the data from.

ARC, or the Airlines Reporting Corporation, stopped selling airline ticketing records after repeated coverage from 404 Media and pressure from lawmakers last year. But the newly obtained records provide additional insight into the breadth of data that airlines were selling without their customers' knowledge, and that law enforcement agencies were tapping into, likely without a warrant.