Mashable writes: Flock Safety offered employees voluntary buyouts on Friday, WIRED reported... Without the buyouts, those familiar with the situation suspect the company would have to lay off some of its 1,500 employees. WIRED writes that people familiar with the program "say they believe that a significant number of the startup's roughly 1,500 employees may try to depart." Flock is making the severance offers as it continues to lose customers... The company has had many of its contracts either not extended or dropped this year, which could leave it short of revenue goals, according to two of the people. A wave of vandalism targeting its cameras has unexpectedly increased expenses. Without buyouts, Flock almost certainly would have to lay off some staff, one of the people believes... People familiar with Flock's severance plan tell WIRED that some employees may take the offer amid speculation that the company, which has raised about $1.2 billion in venture capital, might resort to selling off parts or all of its business to stay afloat... One advocacy group identified 93 city and county governments that cut ties with Flock in August alone. Overall in 2026, roughly three times as many local governments have dropped Flock compared to the previous five years. Flock has recently been building products that extend the company beyond its core license plate reader offering. WIRED reported last month that the company has developed AI-powered investigative software to identify drivers, find potential associates based on patterns of movement, and search across police records and other data. A separate WIRED analysis of Flock's software found tools designed to continuously search camera feeds for people matching written descriptions. WIRED's analysis of Flock's code also found potential integrations with drones and other surveillance systems. Flock's financial scrambles might explain an incident in Syracuse, New York. The nonprofit news site Central Current discovered the city's contract said its license plate data wouldn't be shared outside the police department, reports Mashable: But the department had granted access to other agencies, which police said was an accident. Over roughly a year, searches by officers around the country reached Syracuse's data nearly 4.4 million times. And that wasn't the only surprise in the paperwork. Central Current also found that Flock could keep using Syracuse data after the contract ended. When the city approved cameras from Axon to replace Flock's, Flock said Syracuse couldn't simply end its agreement early. It warned that the city might have to pay for both systems; so even as officials moved to replace the cameras, they faced questions about what Flock could do with the data and what the city might still owe. Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Transportation "has stopped issuing permits allowing Flock cameras and other automated license plate readers to be installed along state roads..." reports the Texas Tribune. "There were an estimated 13,000 Flock cameras across Texas in August, but hundreds of the devices have been shut down after [governor] Abbott's funding freeze." And in August Florida's Republican Governor "ordered his state's transportation department to remove the cameras from state roads, saying he didn't want 'a surveillance state.'"

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"Hackers ripped down a Flock camera above a roadway, made a near-complete copy of the data stored inside it, and shared the files with 404 Media and WIRED," according to an article published on both sites. Though Flock has described its system as protected by on-device encryption, "The hackers were able to copy the camera's storage and recover an encryption key stored on the device, which unlocked videos of thousands of vehicle detections." The hackers shared the material with 404 Media and the transparency nonprofit Distributed Denial of Secrets, which shared the data with WIRED. 404 Media and WIRED then analyzed those files as part of a joint investigation... [T]he joint analysis of the recovered data shows that software running on the device explicitly detects people as well as vehicles, license plates, and bicycles. The camera can produce dozens of images of a single passing vehicle and, according to several weeks of recovered logs, generated more than a million images. Its computer-vision software also sometimes isolated bumper stickers and other graphics, including, in one case, an American flag patch on a motorcyclist's saddlebag... According to our analysis, the camera's logs recorded about 21 days of activity across several periods. During those windows, the device photographed roughly 50,200 vehicles and generated about 1.6 million images. On a typical day, it logged around 3,300 vehicles, with a high of 4,454... The software running on the camera explicitly detects people, something which is typically overlooked in discussions around Flock cameras. When it spots a person, it records where they appear in the image and how confident it is in the detection. It was a collective calling itself stegan0gram that breached the cameras, according to the interview they did with Wired and 404 Media. "Why just destroy them when we can reverse engineer them and find the secrets of those spying on us?"

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A misconfigured Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) database linked to Vietnam exposed more than 220 million passenger and crew travel records spanning 2017 to 2026, including names, passport numbers, nationalities, flight details, seat assignments, and baggage references. Researchers said the database was reachable through a chain of security mistakes and default credentials. It was later secured after the disclosure, but it's unclear whether the data had already been copied or abused. BleepingComputer reports: Kinryu Labs discovered the Elasticsearch cluster on June 3 while surveying exposed databases as part of research into ransomware activity. The cluster, named 'pax-info', contained 29 indices and roughly 107 GB of data. Its two principal indices held 210,318,069 passenger records and 10,465,631 crew records, for a combined 220,783,700 entries. According to Kinryu Labs, the cluster was hosted in Viettel-assigned IP space in Hanoi. BleepingComputer could not confirm which Vietnamese organization operated the system. The exposed information included passengers' and crew members' names, dates of birth, sex, nationalities, passport or travel-document numbers, document expiration dates, and issuing countries. Associated travel data included flight numbers and dates, airlines, departure, destination and transit airports, seat assignments, baggage references, and scheduled, estimated, and actual flight times, information typically carried by APIS and related airline systems. Sample records reviewed by BleepingComputer included travelers of Korean, Chinese, Canadian, and New Zealand nationality, among others. While the researchers could not provide a complete breakdown by nationality, the data covered numerous international airlines across Asia-Pacific, Europe, and the Middle East. As a result, the exposed records could relate to people from virtually anywhere who visited or transited through Vietnam over the nine-year period. Kinryu Labs expects to publish additional details on its blog later this week.

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"This is what happened when we tried to record Flock installing a new camera on public roads," says Emmy award-winning reporter Brendan Keefe in a new video for InvestigateTV. In an accompanying article, InvestigateTV says their reporter "parked on the public street at a distance, donned a yellow safety vest and a hat emblazoned with the logo of InvestigateTV's Atlanta affiliate where he also works, displayed a press placard on his dashboard and then pulled out a camera to record the installation.... The installer saw him and immediately packed up his equipment and drove away, so Keefe also returned to his car and followed several cars behind, hoping to document the next stop." And then Flock's technician called 911. When asked "What's the address of your emergency" Flock's technician answered "I'm getting followed — harassed, pretty much. Taking videos and pictures!" Flock's worker said they'd been harassed multiple times that day, then stated incorrectly that "I know for a fact" that that was what the reporter wanted to do too. InvestigateTV reports that as a result of the Flock technician's call, "Three police cars ended up in the national investigative reporter's rearview mirror that Wednesday afternoon." Keefe told one of the three police officers who pulled him over, "There is an irony here that they're setting up these cameras that track all of our movements, that follow everywhere we go. But when I try to get video in public of him in public setting up a camera, he's afraid I'm following him?" InvestigateTV also reports that "About 17 minutes after the stop began, the responding officers returned to their vehicles and Keefe was allowed to drive away." But the call that brought three police cars to their reporter "was not the first time this summer someone working for Flock Safety summoned police over a camera. " About 17 minutes after the stop began, the responding officers returned to their vehicles and Keefe was allowed to drive away... [But the stop] was not the first time this summer someone working for Flock Safety summoned police over a camera. On June 5, police in Smyrna, Georgia, responded to a 911 call from a Flock employee after a group of YouTube creators began filming outside the company's distribution center located in the Atlanta suburb... The caller claimed the group filming had "been driving around the perimeter, basically harassing everyone" working at the facility. "Three young white males, probably mid-twenties, I'm not sure if they're armed. And they're carrying filming equipment as well," the caller said. Three times during the call he raised the possibility the people filming might be armed, though, when asked, he told the dispatcher he had not seen any weapons... [One of the protesters later told the caller "I think it's interesting, when you guys have this happen, you call the police and make us get stopped. But then you do it and it's okay?"] No one was charged in the YouTuber group, though the individuals were ordered to leave the premises under an official trespass warning. Keefe's video report ends with one final irony. "Every day on my way to work, I'm captured again by those same new shiny Flock cameras. We tried watching the watchers. Turns outs, it's a lot easier for them to watch us." Flock responded to the report by claiming "We do not object to members of the public or press photographing Flock cameras or personnel in public." But they added that employees working "in the field" must "prioritize their safety" and "may contact law enforcement when they believe they are being threatened, harassed, followed, or otherwise face a safety concern."

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LG is pushing back against reports that its smart TVs are "spying" on users, saying wake-word detection happens locally and that features such as Automatic Content Recognition, voice recognition, and interest-based ads are optional. But critics note that researchers found TVs keeping logs of ambient conversations, and LG's response "did not address broader concerns about how much data it collects, who it shares it with, the potential for bad actors to exploit its features, or the misleading way in which its privacy options are presented," reports The Verge. Here's an excerpt from LG's statement: Some recent media coverage may have contributed to misconceptions about how LG smart TVs work. As an industry leader, LG believes we have a responsibility to provide customers with clear and accurate information about how our smart TVs operate and the privacy controls available to them. We would like to clarify how our smart TVs operate and explain our approach to user privacy. LG smart TVs do not continuously record or transmit users' conversations. Speech-to-text processing begins only if a user activates a voice interaction through a supported wake-word feature or by pressing the voice (or AI) button on the remote control. Audio used for wake-word detection is processed locally on the TV and, if no wake word is detected, audio is not converted to text, stored, or transmitted. Voice-recognition results and related technical logs may be generated as part of processing a voice command. These records are associated with specific voice interactions and do not indicate continuous recording of conversations occurring outside an active voice recognition session. Speech-recognition results may be used to support voice-related features but are not uploaded later when the TV is offline or when connectivity is restored. Features such as Automatic Content Recognition (ACR), voice recognition, and interest-based advertising are optional. These features are not enabled by default. Users can choose to enable these features and can manage or withdraw consent through TV settings. ACR uses audio fingerprinting technology using the TV's internal audio processor (not a speaker) to identify content and does not collect screenshots, screen recordings, video recordings, voice recordings, or other audio recordings from the TV. Where ACR is available and enabled, ACR-related information may be used for audience segmentation and viewing or audience trend analysis. Interest-based advertising and cross-device advertising require separate user consent through the applicable advertising-related agreements. Protecting user privacy is a fundamental principle in the design and operation of LG products and services. The statement goes on to "provide additional details on how LG smart TV features work, how information may be processed, what choices users have, and how LG continues to strengthen privacy, transparency, and security."

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Apple's new Audio Intelligence features for the Apple Watch Series 12 are drawing privacy concerns because they can process nearby conversations without explicit consent from everyone involved. "Live Rewind lets you instantly see the last 15 seconds of a conversation as text," Apple explains in its technical summary (PDF). "Siri Recap summarizes conversations throughout your day and produces high-level Apple Intelligence-generated notes so you can stay present in the moment and catch up later." The Register reports: The latest Apple Watch comes with Audio Intelligence, a set of AI audio processing capabilities tuned for the company's S11 chip. Its features include: Sound Recognition, Music Recognition with Shazam, Live Rewind, and Siri Recap. [...] With the double-press of the Digital Crown -- as Apple grandly refers to the button on its Watch -- Live Rewind takes in an audio stream from the Watch microphone, processes it in a Secure Exclave on the S11 chip, and routes the data to the user's nearby iPhone, which runs a speech-to-text algorithm on the 15-second audio segment. The resulting text is saved and the audio is discarded. The wearer's Watch emits an audible tone, even in silent mode, to alert those in the vicinity and provides a visual cue for those able to see the face of the device. Nonetheless, bystanders alerted to the recording -- to the extent they recognize the meaning of the tone -- have not consented to being recorded, which is a legal requirement in 11 US states that have all-party consent laws. Apple characterizes its implementation of brief eavesdropping as respectful of personal privacy. It makes that claim in a section titled, "How Live Rewind respects those around you," citing the audible chime and visual on-screen animation. Siri Recap, meanwhile, "summarizes conversations throughout your day and produces high-level Apple Intelligence-generated notes so you can stay present in the moment and catch up later." This too, Apple describes as an act of respect. "By design, Siri Recap does not create a recording, does not produce a verbatim transcript, and does not identify and attribute speakers," Apple's technical documentation explains. "The output is a brief, high-level summary, comparable to notes a person might write after a conversation. There is no audible signal because no raw audio is retained, and there is no way to reconstruct the original audio from a Siri Recap or share raw audio with anyone."

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Android is rolling out a system-level way to securely transfer passwords and passkeys between credential managers, eliminating the need to export passwords as unencrypted text files or manually recreate passkeys. The feature initially supports Google Password Manager, 1Password, Bitwarden, and Dashlane, with other providers able to integrate through Android's Credentials Transfer API. 9to5Google reports on how to initiate the system-backed transfer method: 1. Start the move: Open your new password manager app and choose the option to import or copy your passwords and passkeys from another provider. The password manager will then hand the task over to Android. 2. Let Android securely coordinate the data transfer: Android will automatically detect existing password managers on your device and show you which you can import from. 3. Review and authorize: Once you tap "Continue," Android will bring you to your existing password manager to select, review, and authorize the transfer. Then your data will be quickly and securely transferred between the apps in just a few seconds.

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A Gamers Nexus investigation found that LG smart TVs are almost constantly logging and uploading data about owners and their homes, even while they are offline or in standby mode. "The company's TV sets scan Wi-Fi networks for nearby devices, record audio logs through their microphones, and use audio and video sampling to recognize exactly what you're watching from across the TV inputs," reports The Verge. From the report: Gamers Nexus partnered with fellow YouTubers Level1Techs and independent security researchers for the investigation, which involved testing retail LG OLEDs. Packet captures showed the TVs scanning the local area network for nearby hardware like phones or smartwatches, as well as logging location data and details of nearby Wi-Fi networks, and feeding the information back to LG Ad Solutions. Perhaps more concerningly, the TVs were capable of recording microphone audio when in standby; this continued even after the TV was disconnected from the internet, with audio files stored offline and uploaded once a connection was restored. Earlier this year, LG was found to be silently installing an adware-like app on Windows PCs that ran pop-up ads for other LG apps and even McAfee antivirus.

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