Government use of Flock surveillance pits privacy fears vs. public safety benefits

Cars roll down 41st Street in Sioux Falls. Tens of thousands of vehicles travel the city's streets each day.

Each carries something that has long been visible to anyone standing along the road: a license plate.

But now, governments can do a lot more with that license plate.

Artificial intelligence, automated license plate readers and increasingly sophisticated cameras are making it possible to capture, store and search information about vehicles moving through public spaces on a scale that would have been difficult to imagine even a few years ago.

That has thrust South Dakota into a debate over where public safety ends and government surveillance begins.