‘Bold strides’: Cybersecurity expert details new safeguards for OKC Flock cameras
‘Bold strides’: Cybersecurity expert details new safeguards in OKC Flock contract. (KOKH)
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (KOKH) —Flock cameras are at thecenter of controversyin Oklahoma City.
City council recently approved a contract renewal worth $270,000 last month.
According to the Oklahoma City Police Chief Ron Bacy, there are 90 Flock cameras in Oklahoma City that are used in the city by OKCPD.
“City councils are supposed to work for the people, We elect them, we expect them to at least consider our voices. That didn’t happen today,” said Elisa Standridge at the city council meeting on August 18.
At the city council meeting on Tuesday, councilman Matt Hinkle said council members have received death threats.
“Threats of physical violence on basically a group of volunteers, I know we get paid but not very much, is very unacceptable. If you’re going to come up here and be mad, and you don’t win, grow up and walk away and figure out another way, but don’t threaten us,” Hinkle said.
Flock cameras both in OKC and nationwide have sparked privacy concerns.
“Flock has been out there since like ’22 or so forth. Hadn’t really been a lot of controversy till lately. But there was some warranted, it was kind of like the Wild West,” said Ron Vaughn, EMSCO Solutions specialist and cybersecurity expert.
OKCPD uses the Flock cameras to help solve crimes. The data is shared with 109 other agencies but the department has turned off national sharing
“They had national sharing turned on by default. So any agency from any state or federal agency could access anytime they wanted to. That’s been completely turned off. Now it actually has to be approved by the Oklahoma City Police Department to give them access,” Vaughn said.
The data retention has also been shortened from 30 days to 7 days.
“So people aren’t going to be able to go back from a long period of time unless they’re under an active investigation, then they can store things longer. So honestly, as long as they have a multi-factor authentication, they have in place to do manual reading of the logs every 30 days, so they will be looking for any behavior that doesn’t make sense,” Vaughn said. “Nothing’s 100%, but I think they’ve made some bold strides.”
Vaughn said while things are better, anything can be hacked.
“It’s certainly better, nothing’s 100%. I don’t know where it’s housed, how it’s housed, but anything can be hacked. So you don’t ever say if you wonder when, right,” he told FOX 25.
FOX 25 has confirmedtwo instances of the cameras being used for inappropriate purposes inside the police department.
