Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley has called for a national 'compromise' between privacy and safety as the company faces growing public backlash over concerns that its surveillance cameras, drones and license plate recognition technology could be misused.
Speaking to Fox News, Langley said: 'When people talk about just one of these, privacy or safety, they're prioritizing the wrong thing, and what we have to prioritize as a country is compromise.'
The concerns are not merely hypothetical. The Washington Post recently identified 46 cases where police officers have been accused of using Flock technology for unauthorized purposes, including stalking wives, girlfriends or exes. After hearing an interview with one alleged victim, Langley told CBS News: 'I apologize. It kills me that she went through that.' He added: 'I don't think that Flock created police abuse. I think we're the first company to ever shine a light on it and build the tools to find it.'
Politicians from both major parties have criticised the company. Michigan's Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed accused his opponent of supporting 'mass proliferation of Flock cameras', while Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders posted: 'STOP AI MASS SURVEILLANCE. STOP FLOCK.' On the right, three House Republicans introduced a bill to prohibit federal purchases of automated surveillance systems using facial recognition, biometric IDs or licence plate recognition, 'including a Flock Safety camera'.
Flock has already responded to criticism by cutting default data retention from 30 days to seven days and requiring a case code before data access, though both can be overridden, for example via a setting called Evidence Mode. The American Civil Liberties Union said the changes 'may be a step in the right direction' but questioned whether they are 'a real change or just another Flock PR move'.
Langley has said state regulators should 'pass bills that make [the illegal use of Flock data] a criminal offense', and acknowledged: 'Today, it is too often that in Flock and in other technologies, there's no regulation. There's no accountability, and we think that's wrong.'