The Download

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photos: Adobe Stock

TL;DR: A resident of Pflugerville, Texas, recently requested public Flock data—and discovered something disturbing: Outside agencies accessed this data 1.6 million times in a six-month period, compared to just 5,078 searches from its own police department during that span. The town is now no longer using Flock—and it’s not alone.

What happened: Here are some head-spinning numbers: In Pflugerville—which has a population of around 68,000—459 outside agencies searched its Flock data 1.6 million times in the last six months, according to the San Antonio Express-News.

The kicker? The city says only 83 agencies were authorized to access this data. It’s unclear who exactly was running all those searches, though the report names several out-of-state law enforcement agencies (which account for at least 865 of these requests). Last week, after the findings of the resident’s public records request were posted to social media, the city ended its Flock contract and covered up its 28 cameras.

And this kind of access creep apparently isn’t just a Pflugerville problem. A recent Wired investigation found that Flock data from the Atlanta suburb of Alpharetta was shared with over 2,000 outside orgs, including police departments, colleges, airports, and other government agencies—like Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

How Flock data spreads: You might be wondering how so many outside groups can obtain one city’s data in the first place. Flock’s explanation, per a company spokesperson: Pflugerville had statewide data sharing turned on since 2024; Flock did include two out-of-state agencies by mistake (but says it fixed this months ago). “Agencies control their sharing settings and can change or revoke them at any time,” the spokesperson told the San Antonio Express-News.

A city spokesperson offered a different account to the outlet, however: Flock recently disclosed to the police that a bug had let Pflugerville’s records surface in national database searches. “The monthly dashboard reports provided by Flock to the Police Department did not show this discrepancy,” the spokesperson said—those showed only searches from the local PD and authorized agencies.

Flock off: As backlash to police misuse of Flock data continues to mount, more states and cities are turning away from the company. Last week, two suburbs of Phoenix, Arizona, ended their Flock contracts. Meanwhile, the Florida Department of Transportation just ordered police to remove all automated license plate readers from state highways, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott blocked state spending on Flock a few days ago.

Bottom line: The public was already up in arms about Flock’s self-admitted abuse problem. Now the trouble isn’t just how this data gets wielded by local police, but all the other unknown groups who can access it, too. —WK

      

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Start your Spotify Wrapped damage control now

If you’re like me, you and your partner have wildly different tastes in music. And like me, you’ve heard a version of the same complaint more than once: “Spotify put ‘Pink Pony Club’ on my Discover Weekly while I was in the shower, and I had no choice but to let it play.” (To which my answer is, what’s the problem?)

If it does bother you, however, Spotify has a fix for that. You can exclude certain playlists or songs from your taste profile, which determines your recommendations—including your Discover Weekly, homepage, and Blend.

How to exclude streams from your taste profile: Go to a playlist or track → tap the three dots to pull up a menu → click on Exclude playlist/track from your taste profile. You can follow the same steps to add it back.

The feature also works retroactively—past listens will have less impact on your recommendations when you choose to exclude them.

And another upside of this feature is that these excluded streams will also be excluded from your Wrapped story (they’ll still count toward your total listening time, though). So now is a good time to make sure that nursery rhyme you play for your nephew on loop isn’t your top track of the year. —LC

If you have a tech tip or life hack you just can’t live without, fill out this form and you may see it featured in a future edition.

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The Zeitbyte

When your robot vacuum becomes key evidence

Illustration: Morning Brew Inc., Photo: Getty Images

It’s a series of events Law & Order’s writers probably wish they thought of: A man sued his wife for having an affair, using footage recorded with his robot vacuum as evidence. Then his spouse countersued for invasion of privacy—and now he faces prison time.

This stranger-than-fiction tale started in 2023, when the Taiwanese man in question found a stray toothbrush in the bathroom and began to suspect his wife of infidelity. Instead of attempting more tried-and-true communication methods like, say, texting (or a phone call), he tried to use the robot vacuum app to remotely contact his wife. And because modern robovacs are equipped with cameras, he got confirmation of his suspicions, catching his wife and another man in various states of undress.

Thanks to this ankle-height surveillance, the man won his civil case and was awarded a little under $16,000 for emotional distress. But in the aftermath of his wife’s criminal complaint, which she won, he may spend five months behind bars. It’s a stark reminder that these handy little helpers could be weaponized as spycams; there’s no confirmation yet on who retains custody of the vacuum. —WK

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• Amazon has been hit with a lawsuit from the FTC and 22 state AGs over ads—the company says it’s “misguided.”
• Read Tim Cook’s emotional note to employees yesterday as he stepped down as Apple’s CEO: “I will miss this work in ways I can only begin to imagine.”
• Another day, another camera-equipped device. This time, it’s a toothbrush that Dyson hopes you’ll spend $499 on. Oh, and it flosses for you.
• You can now watch more than 100 live TV channels for free (with ads, of course) through your PS5 in the US.
• Apple claims “shocking evidence” of former employees’ wrongdoing after performing a forensic analysis of one of their MacBooks as part of its lawsuit against OpenAI. Meanwhile, OpenAI says it’s all “a mess of Apple’s own making.”
• Samsung’s newest foldable phone is apparently so popular the company is now stealing parts from the future to meet demand.

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