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Ulta Beauty urged to remove Flock Safety cameras from stores
UltraViolet, a women-led gender justice organization, launched its “Drop Flock” campaign this month, calling on Ulta Beauty to terminate contracts with Flock Safety and other mass surveillance companies. The organization said its petition had surpassed 15,000 signatures as of Sept. 8.
“Ulta Beauty has built a multibillion-dollar business on women’s trust,” UltraViolet Campaign Director Jenna Sherman said in a statement accompanying the campaign’s launch. “Putting Flock, an invasive mass surveillance system, right outside its stores without customer knowledge or consent is a direct violation of that trust.”
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A women’s advocacy group, Ultraviolet, has a petition out, “Hey Ulta, Mass Surveillance Isn’t Pretty.” They are calling for Ulta to end its use of, and relationship with, Flock Safety.
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Some critics fear the company is overstepping their privacy by scanning plates and monitoring behavior without getting a warrant.
Woman-led gender justice organization UltraViolet is now leading an effort to get the cameras taken out of Ulta parking lots. “You stop at Ulta Beauty on your way home for mascara. You quickly park, pay, and leave. But Flock (also called Flock Safety) is watching,” the organization said on Instagram.
The organization urged followers to demand that Ulta Beauty immediately stop using the cameras in parking lots.
The Flock backlash is coming for retail
Ultraviolet, a nonprofit women's advocacy group, put out a petition on August 26, titled "Hey Ulta: Mass Surveillance Isn't Pretty," calling on the beauty retail giant to end its contract with Flock, which the group sees as a threat to women's privacy and safety.
"While the majority of Flock ALPR cameras are deployed via contracts with law enforcement agencies — which is where much of the abuse we're concerned about takes place — retailers like Ulta are also playing a key role in normalizing AI surveillance and feeding the personal data of everyday people into a vast network that could be accessed by all kinds of actors that don't always have our best interest in mind," Jenna Sherman, a campaign director for Ultraviolet, told Business Insider.
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Activist organization UltraViolet posted online that Ulta Beauty is one of Flock’s “biggest commercial customers” and the internet is not happy. Sr. Director of Brand Communication at the org, Rebecca Gerber, told me they got this information from a press release on Flock’s website as well as an interview with the head of Loss Prevention at Ulta, Rory Stallard, and Flock, where it was noted that post-COVID, Ulta saw an increase in violence at their stores and they implemented technology to help with that.
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Civil liberties group UltraViolet launched a campaign called “Hey Ulta: Mass surveillance isn’t pretty,” urging the retailer to cut ties with Flock and deactivate the cameras.
Shoppers outraged after learning Ulta Beauty stores are allowing Flock cameras
“At a time when women seeking reproductive healthcare, immigrants, protesters, journalists, and others are increasingly being monitored and targeted, the consequences of Flock’s mass surveillance system are staggering,” the organization said in an Instagram post. “We shouldn't have to trade our privacy and safety for a trip to Ulta.”
Flock Camera Backlash Now Extends to Beauty Shops
Ulta shoppers may now have more to worry about than running out of mascara. The beauty retailer has quietly installed Flock Safety's automated license plate reader cameras at some stores, a move that's triggered calls for a boycott and a new pressure campaign from gender justice group Ultra Violet, Allure reports. Flock's AI-driven system logs plates and other vehicle details and can share data with local police, raising fears over mass surveillance and tracking of protesters, immigrants, and people seeking abortions.
Ulta’s use of Flock technology causes upset online
Social media users flooded Ulta Beauty’s Instagram posts this week sharing their frustration about the company’s work with surveillance technology provider Flock after a campaign by activist organization UltraViolet went viral.
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"UltraViolet, a gender-justice organisation, has launched a campaign titled Hey Ulta: Mass surveillance isn't pretty. The group is asking Ulta Beauty to cut its relationship with Flock Safety and shut down its cameras in its car parks.
The petition argues that Flock's wider network of AI-powered cameras can be used to track people's movements through their vehicle licence plates. UltraViolet also argues that Flock's technology could enable surveillance targeting women seeking reproductive healthcare, protesters and immigrant communities.
'Flock's dystopian license plate readers are supplying the data needed to carry out these attacks,' the organisation states in its petition, adding that the systems are 'often wrong and are regularly used to stalk women'.
Buying Makeup at Ulta? Flock’s AI Cameras Could Turn Your Beauty Run Into a Surveillance Record.
The campaign, led by women's rights organisation UltraViolet, is urging Ulta to cut ties with Flock Safety, whose AI-powered cameras can record vehicle number plates and where and when they are detected.
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