Surveillance technology company Flock is rolling out significant policy updates after investigations revealed that some law enforcement officers were misusing its automatic license plate reader (ALPR) systems to stalk ex-romantic partners and harass others. In an interview, CEO Garrett Langley issued a public mea culpa, acknowledging that the company had failed to take sufficient responsibility for how its tools are used. “We got this one wrong,” he said, adding that he has changed his mind about where the burden of oversight should lie.
For years, Flock has maintained that local policymakers, not the company, should be responsible for setting guardrails on police use of its surveillance technology. But with little regulation materializing, Langley now says Flock itself must act. Over the coming weeks, the company will implement a series of mandatory changes designed to curb abuse. The most notable is requiring Audit Assistance, a feature that flags abnormal search behavior and automatically locks out suspicious users until an administrator reviews their activity. Previously, this feature was optional, and only about a third of the agencies using Flock had enabled it.
Mandatory case codes and emergency overrides
Another major change requires all users to enter a case code before running a search. This requirement is intended to prevent officers from querying license plates for personal or malicious reasons. In emergency situations, such as tracking a missing child, an administrator can override the case-code requirement, but those override instances will be automatically flagged for review. Langley said the case-code requirement is an “obvious way to curb abuse” and admitted that Flock should have made it mandatory from the start.
The company is also shortening the default period for retaining data collected by its ALPR cameras from 30 days to seven days, aligning more closely with recommendations from civil liberties groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). Police departments may still choose to extend the retention period if they wish, and Flock is introducing a new “Evidence Mode” that preserves searches linked to a specific case number. The company is also changing how data sharing works between agencies. Previously, localities could share their entire Flock database with other agencies on an all-or-nothing basis. Now, they can set granular limits—for example, allowing another police department to search its data for a homicide suspect while prohibiting access for immigration enforcement.
Reports of stalking and abuse
The policy changes come in the wake of a series of alarming reports about officers allegedly using Flock for stalking and harassment. In Braselton, Georgia, a police chief reportedly searched his ex-girlfriend’s license plate more than 500 times over a seven-month period. In California, prosecutors alleged that a former Riverside County Sheriff’s Office deputy used Flock data to stalk and harass his ex-girlfriend, including looking up license plate information about men she was dating. The incidents have drawn renewed attention to the dangers of giving law enforcement unrestricted access to vast databases of location-tracking data.
Reports of ALPR abuse date back to at least 2021, according to the nonprofit Institute for Justice. But the recent spate of incidents has pushed the issue into the public spotlight. Langley predicted that the new audit tools will lead to more officers being held accountable. “You are going to see more officers fired and more officers arrested for abusing police power,” he said. For departments that want to prevent abuse, Audit Assistance will make it easier to surface suspicious behavior without forcing agencies to manually comb through thousands of lines of logs.
Civil liberties groups respond
The ACLU, which has long criticized Flock’s approach to privacy, released an analysis of the announced changes. The group said the updates appear “more focused on addressing a perceived PR problem than the significant harms its products create.” While the ACLU acknowledged that shortening the data retention period could be a “step in the right direction,” it cautioned that the real impact would depend on how Evidence Mode is implemented. The group also called for independent review of Flock’s auditing tools and search-reason requirements to determine whether they are effective in practice.
Langley’s tone toward critics has softened over time. 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 said the characterization was a “mistake.” Groups like the ACLU and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have accused Flock of misleading the public about the risks of its tools, including the possibility that they could be used to track women seeking abortions. In at least one instance, Flock reportedly attributed the disconnect to confusion over a nuanced issue. The company has separately said that officers are prohibited from performing searches related to reproductive care in states where such searches are restricted.
A shift in responsibility
Langley said his approach has evolved through frequent conversations with communities around the country, including at city council meetings. He acknowledged that many critics won’t immediately trust his intentions. “All I guess I’m asking for is for a fair shot,” he said. He still prefers that legislators make key decisions about how policing tools should be used, and he hopes these proposals will also force competing surveillance companies to adopt similar guardrails. But he now publicly concedes that waiting for regulation could take a while, and that the company has a responsibility in how its technology is deployed.
“It took me maybe longer than it should have to realize the sheer impact of the company,” Langley said. “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.”
Background on Flock and ALPR technology
Flock is one of the largest providers of ALPR systems in the United States. Its solar-powered cameras are mounted on poles and streetlights in hundreds of cities, capturing images of every license plate that passes by. The data is stored in a cloud-based platform that law enforcement agencies can search, allowing them to track the movements of vehicles over time. The company has faced persistent criticism from privacy advocates who argue that the technology enables warrantless mass surveillance and can be easily abused.
The new policy changes represent a notable departure from Flock’s previous stance. The company had long argued that it should not be the one to decide how police use its technology, insisting that local lawmakers should create the rules. But with few jurisdictions passing meaningful regulation, Flock is now stepping in to impose its own requirements. Langley acknowledged that the slow pace of legislative action influenced his decision to act unilaterally.
“This is such an obvious way to curb abuse,” he said of the case-code requirement. “And I said, ‘Fine. You know what? I think that’s right, and we got this one wrong. We should make it a requirement.’”
Flock’s changes come at a time when ALPR technology is increasingly under scrutiny. Several cities have considered banning or restricting the use of license plate readers, and some departments have suspended their use altogether. The new safeguards may go some way toward addressing the concerns, but civil liberties advocates say more work is needed to ensure that surveillance tools do not infringe on individual privacy rights.
Source: The Verge News