FedEx’s Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network
July 1st, 2024Is there more to FedEx than meets the eye?
FedEx was founded by Frederick W. Smith, a member of Skull & Bones.
Smith, a former Lieutenant in the U.S. Marine Corps and a decorated combat veteran of the Vietnam War, has developed a close relationship with the U.S. Government. FedEx is a major contractor to U.S. Government agencies and military branches. FedEx participates in U.S. Air Force airlift operations.
FedEx’s operations depend on tracking employees, vehicles, aircraft and millions of packages throughout its global shipping system in realtime. FedEx had to develop massive, proprietary information systems to do this.
And now we come to this headline:
“FedEx’s Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network”
I think I know at least part of why this is happening.
I worked for FedEx in the 1990s. There are (or at least were) terrifying security vulnerabilities in FedEx’s operations that I will not discuss. If you know what these vulnerabilities are, please don’t feel motivated to mention them here. These vulnerabilities may or may not be known to state and non-state actors who intend to cause serious harm to the U.S. I’d rather not give anyone any ideas.
I would like to think that FedEx’s partnership with Flock Safety is related to addressing these vulnerabilities. Maybe that’s the goal. Maybe there are multiple goals.
FedEx is a strategic asset to the U.S. Government that happens to be vulnerable. I’m almost certain that The Department of Homeland Security and/or the Department of Defense is coordinating this mass surveillance operation with FedEx and Flock Safety. My guess is that, besides protecting FedEx, a copy of all the collected data is being used elsewhere. Maybe, “They’re keeping track of where you are and where you’ve been.”
What happens to all of the data that the Flock Safety systems are collecting in and around FedEx assets?
Does it get deleted after 30 days, which is the default retention period for Flock Safety systems?
*wink*
Via: Forbes:
Twenty years ago, FedEx established its own police force. Now it’s working with local police to build out an AI car surveillance network.
Forbes has learned the shipping and business services company is using AI tools made by Flock Safety, a $4 billion car surveillance startup, to monitor its distribution and cargo facilities across the United States. As part of the deal, FedEx is providing its Flock surveillance feeds to law enforcement, an arrangement that Flock has with at least four multi-billion dollar private companies. But publicly available documents reveal that some local police departments are also sharing their Flock feeds with FedEx — a rare instance of a private company availing itself of a police surveillance apparatus.
To civil rights activists, such close collaboration has the potential to dramatically expand Flock’s car surveillance network, which already spans 4,000 cities across over 40 states and some 40,000 cameras that track vehicles by license plate, make, model, color and other identifying characteristics, like dents or bumper stickers. Lisa Femia, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said because private entities aren’t subject to the same transparency laws as police, this sort of arrangement could “[leave] the public in the dark, while at the same time expanding a sort of mass surveillance network.”
Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union, said it was “profoundly disconcerting” that FedEx was exchanging data with law enforcement as part of Flock’s “mass surveillance” system. “It raises questions about why a private company…would have privileged access to data that normally is only available to law enforcement,” he said.
FedEx declined to answer questions about the nature of its partnership with Flock. Spokesperson Phalisha Jackson told Forbes, “We take the safety of our team members very seriously. As such, we do not publicly discuss our security procedures.”
