Flock Safety announces platform changes to address privacy abuses by law enforcement

Published Aug 14, 02:03 PM UTC

Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company operating a nationwide network of automated license plate readers, announced on Thursday a series of platform changes aimed at addressing growing privacy concerns and documented abuses by law enforcement. CEO Garrett Langley stated that customers own the data and can decide which offenses outside agencies can search for, allowing cities to block immigration enforcement searches. Key changes include making an audit tool mandatory to flag abnormal search behavior, shortening the standard data retention window from 30 to 7 days (with longer preservation for evidence tied to a case number), and requiring law enforcement users to enter a case-specific code before each search. Emergency overrides will be automatically flagged for review. Critics, including the ACLU and the Institute for Justice, dismissed the changes as 'window dressing' that fail to address the fundamental issue of warrantless surveillance. Over 50 agencies have canceled contracts with Flock since the start of the year, and bipartisan bills in Congress aim to restrict the technology.