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Florida and Texas Move to Block Flock Cameras Over Privacy Concerns
The states of Florida and Texas are moving to end their relationship with surveillance giant Flock, as the company faces increasing backlash over privacy concerns and misuse of its tracking technology. Florida’s Department of Transportation said in a memo on Monday that it will cease using license plate readers across the state’s highways, such as Flock’s cameras, citing “concerning reports of misuse, data privacy concerns, and surveillance schemes.”
The state now has 30 days to remove the cameras. The decision comes days after Florida governor Ron DeSantis called the license plate reading technology “out of control” in remarks during a press conference last Wednesday.
Florida follows similar action by Texas, which last week ordered state agencies to stop funding Flock cameras. Texas governor Greg Abbott’s office cited abuse of the surveillance system, including the recent indictment of a Lufkin, Texas police officer with 100 felony counts related to allegedly searching Flock’s database to track people without authorization.
Flock Tracks Your License Plate. We Tracked the $2M It Spent on Lobbying.
Flock Safety has poured more than $2 million into federal and state lobbying since 2025 as the fast‑growing surveillance company faces mounting scrutiny from lawmakers in both parties and privacy advocates over its ever-expanding network of license‑plate‑tracking cameras.
The company spent nearly $1.3 million between January 2025 and July 2026 on federal lobbying and at least another $1 million in statehouses across the U.S., according to OpenSecrets’ federal lobbying data and an analysis of lobbying disclosures across all 50 states. Flock has hired lobbyists in dozens of states — often former government employees passing through the political “revolving door” — including in places where weak disclosure laws mean spending totals are not publicly reported.
Flock has drawn increasing criticism over the vast, largely unregulated network of automated cameras it operates nationwide. The cameras record license plate numbers and other characteristics of all vehicles passing by, allowing thousands of law enforcement agencies in 49 states (all except Alaska) to search and share Flock’s data across jurisdictions.
What Would It Take to Actually Stop the Data Centers?
In the United States, building a data center now polls roughly as well as abolishing the police. If current trends continue, server warehouses may soon be less popular with Americans than pizza topped with pineapple and shattered glass. In an August survey from Heatmap Pro and Embold Research, just 15 percent of Americans said they would support a data center being built in their area, while 75 percent expressed opposition. One year earlier, 43 percent of respondents in the same poll had approved of nearby data center development, while just 42 percent opposed it.
This soaring backlash is visible in other surveys — and in the actions of elected officials. In recent weeks, Wisconsin’s gubernatorial candidates sparred over who hates data centers more, Pennsylvania’s center-left Gov. Josh Shapiro enacted new restrictions on AI infrastructure projects (after previously championing such investment), and even Texas’s staunchly pro-business Republican government announced a temporary moratorium on new approvals.
Meanwhile, data center projects are being canceled at a record rate, as local opposition mounts.
Sam Altman Called Gavin Newsom Over Kids’ Chatbot Safety Bill
When Sam Altman had last-minute concerns about California legislation that proposed new rules for kids using AI chatbots, he took them straight to Gov. Gavin Newsom.
That’s according to four people familiar with details of Altman’s behind-the-scenes maneuvering — including one person with direct knowledge and three others directly involved in talks with OpenAI over the bill, SB 1119.
They told POLITICO the OpenAI CEO reached out directly to the governor during a final burst of negotiations last week before the bill passed the state Legislature late Monday night. If signed into law, the bill would create a nation-leading framework for protecting young people using AI chatbots.
It would allow families and the state to sue chatbot makers over alleged harms to children; require verification of users’ ages; limit young users’ exposure to inappropriate content; and regulate advertising to young users, among other measures.
Mark Zuckerberg Wants to Make Sure His Competitors Share His Pain
The up to $17.1 billion that Meta agreed on Aug 26 to pay to 47 states, the District of Columbia and some U.S. territories to settle a three-year-old lawsuit probably won’t sting that much for Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s chief executive.
The details of the settlement, however, could leave a mark. Meta also agreed to rein in children’s access to its marquee products like Instagram and Facebook, create daily time limits, increase parental controls and cut off access during school hours. That could permanently alter how Meta interacts with its youngest users, the next generation to scroll and click on its various apps, and make it hard for the company to uphold its claim to be the world’s dominant social media company.
Mr. Zuckerberg has a contingency plan: Level the playing field, so that children can’t just switch to the app of a competitor. If he has to play by new rules, he wants companies like YouTube and TikTok to do the same. Meta built a financial incentive into its deal with the state attorneys general, designed to rope in the other companies.
Smart Glasses Are Creeping Out Entire Countries
As interest in smart glasses balloons, aversion toward them has tracked right along with it. In fact, that aversion is so strong that entire countries are now looking to restrict when and how smart glasses should be allowed.
Take Norway, for example. The Norwegian government, specifically the Ministry of Digitalisation, just announced that it’ll be seeking “stricter regulation” of smart glasses and is apparently urging both public and private entities to “consider their own guidelines,” according to the AFP.
The reason? Privacy, of course. In a statement, Minister Karianne Tung made the scope of perceived problems with smart glasses adoption pretty clear. “We can see that people’s private lives and privacy are coming under pressure from new technology, and I therefore want to regulate smart glasses and similar devices more strictly than today,” Tung said in a statement to the AFP. “This could, for example, mean banning features such as facial recognition of other people in public spaces.”
Chatbots Got Safer But Will Still Role-Play Self-Harm With Users
ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence chatbots have become less likely to encourage suicidal thoughts but will still engage in potentially harmful conversations and reinforce apparently delusional behavior, a new study found.
AI companies including Google and ChatGPT-maker OpenAI have been sued by family members who allege the chatbots encouraged self-harm in heavy users who later died by suicide. The companies have denied the claims in court and said they made product changes informed by mental health experts.
A new study released Monday by Transluce, a nonprofit that aims to provide public oversight of AI, found that the latest AI models from Google, Claude chatbot provider Anthropic and OpenAI almost never explicitly encouraged or validated suicide. They frequently encouraged users to seek support from friends and family. But leading AI models often complied with potentially harmful requests, such as helping a user who asked for creative writing or role-play about their own suicide or death, Transluce found.
