Flock CEO: ‘We got this one wrong’

Surveillance tech company Flock is rolling out updates to address reports of cops across the country abusing its tools to stalk ex-romantic partners and others. CEO Garrett Langley is delivering a mea culpa, and in an interview with The Verge, says he’s changed his mind on what responsibility Flock bears for how law enforcement uses it.

Over the coming weeks, Flock will begin implementing updates that include requiring a previously optional feature called Audit Assistance, which flags “abnormal search behavior” and immediately locks out suspicious users until an administrator reviews their activity. All users will also be required to enter case codes to run searches, ideally limiting the ability to run a query for personal or nefarious purposes. This can be overridden by an administrator for emergency situations, like tracking a missing child, but those will automatically be flagged for review.

These and other changes mark a change of course for Flock — which has previously punted oversight of its technology to lawmakers, arguing they’re responsible for crafting policies that require Audit Assistance-style systems or other limits. Little such regulation has come to pass, and Langley says he’s seen firsthand how slowly the regulatory process can move. “This is such an obvious way to curb abuse,” he says of the tool that lets agency administrators require case codes for searches. “And I said, ‘Fine. You know what? I think that’s right, and we got this one wrong. We should make it a requirement.’”

On top of turning on Audit Assistance for everyone, Flock is also shortening the default period it keeps data from devices like its automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) from 30 to seven days, moving closer to the limits suggested by critics like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Police departments can still choose to lengthen that retention period, or use Flock’s new “Evidence Mode,” which will preserve searches tied to a specific case number. Individual localities could previously share data with other agencies on an all-or-nothing basis; now, they can set granular limits like allowing another police department to search their Flock data for a homicide suspect, but not access it for immigration enforcement.

The changes follow a series of reports about officers allegedly using Flock for stalking and harassment. One police chief in Braselton, Georgia, searched his ex-girlfriend’s license plate more than 500 times over seven months, The Washington Post reported. California prosecutors alleged that a former Riverside County Sheriff’s Office deputy used data from Flock to stalk and harass his ex-girlfriend, looking up license plate information on men she was dating, local outlet KESQ reported.

Reports of Flock and other ALPR abuse date back to 2021, according to the nonprofit Institute for Justice, and a recent spate of incidents has brought them further into public view. But since Audit Assistance launched as a voluntary feature in April, only a third of agencies who work with Flock have turned it on. The company says identification of abuse predictably went up for those who did. Now, Langley predicts, “you are going to see more officers fired and more officers arrested for abusing police power.” For offices that want to prevent abuse, he says Audit Assistance will make it easier to surface suspect behavior, instead of making departments manually comb through thousands of lines of logs.

In the past, Langley has taken a combative approach to some critics, saying that local policymakers should decide what guardrails are appropriate for its tools. Amid backlash, that tone has softened. In a Forbes interview last year, he called DeFlock — a site that tracks Flock’s technologies across the country — a “terroristic” group; in July, he apologized and called that characterization a “mistake.”

Groups like the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) — toward which Langley has generally not used such strong language — have also accused Flock of misleading the public and officials about the risks of its tools, and warned that they could be put to uses like tracking women seeking abortions. In at least one case of the allegedly misleading statements, Flock reportedly chalked up the disconnect to confusion over a nuanced issue. It’s separately said officers are prohibited from doing searches related to reproductive care in states where such searches are restricted.

Langley says his approach has evolved thanks to frequent conversations with communities around the country, including at events like city council meetings. He understands that many critics won’t immediately trust his intentions. “All I guess I’m asking for is for a fair shot.” He says he still prefers legislators make key calls about how policing tools should be used. (These proposals aren’t entirely selfless — Langley hopes they’ll also force competing companies to adopt similar guardrails.) But he’s now publicly acknowledging that could take a while to happen, and the company has some responsibility in how its technology is deployed.

“It took me maybe longer than it should have to realize the sheer impact of the company,” he says. “I’m still surprised. I got our July update a week ago, and we helped find almost a thousand missing people, over 22,000 stolen cars — in July. That’s crazy. That’s such a big impact on the world. And what I came to realize over time was that the responsibility that bears with it is an obligation to make sure that it’s creating a society that we both, you and I, and everyone around us, want to raise their kids in.”