So far as I can tell from my little corner of Healthcare IT, Big Tech primarily has people doing two things:
1) creating ways to get people to generate data
2) people sitting around consulting with experts - including lawyers - about how to monetize that data.
Just a week or two ago, a jury found Meta liable for breaking New Mexico state consumer protection laws related to, among other things, child safety. They were ordered to pay $375 million over it. They'll appeal, of course [0] but this points to at least one part of the industry blatantly disregarding laws around their products in order to pursue more profits.
You can bet there's at least one person at Flock and Axon thinking of ways to further monetize their data. They might be willing to accept the cost of a fine or civil action as a part of doing business unless it wipes out all profit gained from the violation.
Given that this is a mass surveillance tool, I'd say its on them to prove they're complying with society's expectations, not for society to just accept "we're in compliance with the law".
[0] https://abcnews.com/GMA/Family/meta-hit-375-million-verdict-...
> Sale of data. Flock’s previous T&C stated flatly, “Flock does not own and shall not sell Customer Data.” That language is now absent from their T&C.
[0] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c...
You have to admit, the precedent for them being a company that understands the sensitivity of this data has not been set.
The what if conspiracy serves no purpose in dethroning Flock.
Maybe Flock gets bought by another company and "oops, the terms changed". Maybe all contract renewals will have commercial use in the language.
Once the cameras are there, the heavy lifting (from Flock's side) has been done.
In California, it's thought that only 9% of data brokers are compliant with state laws requiring transparency and deletion of personal data.[0] It only goes down from there; most states do not have strong consumer privacy laws.
Furthermore, most municipal entities are not in a position to litigate a case over these changes for an extended period of time, and Flock is changing their terms to make it harder to terminate contracts. They can also now keep the data as long as they'd like. [1]
This, along with general corporate conduct these days, makes it very likely that they're actively planning to sell the data and might be doing so already in.
[0] https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2026/08/companies-buy-sell...
[1] https://www.aclu.org/news/privacy-technology/tracking-alpr-c...
We have already seen that data is a highly valuable currency. And investor-backed companies with unicorn valuations are pressured to extract as much value as they can. All things considered, I would say that Flock continuing to monetize access to their collected data in new ways is a foregone conclusion unless it is specifically stopped or prohibited in some way. On top of that, I would wager that it may be already happening in some low-volume ways.