The public safety technology vendor, probably best known for its license plate reading (LPR) technology, has come under fire recently for reportedly using data gained via breaches — the company clarified that it had decided not to use it — as well as for agencies employing Flock products for immigration enforcement.
Those instances stand as the latest example of criticism of public safety tools that are becoming more sophisticated and, potentially, more intrusive.
Flock is hoping to get ahead of the controversy via policy and fresh rules about the uses of its tech, as well as a lengthy letter from corporate leadership.
In an online post titled “Setting the Record Straight,” CEO and founder Garrett Langley pushed back against and called “misleading” some of the reporting that has focused on Flock’s LPR and other offerings.
He denied that Flock’s LPR tech has helped authorities in Texas “target people seeking reproductive health care,” for instance.
He also wrote that some local law enforcement agencies that are Flock customers have chosen to work with federal authorities, but Langley added that there exists no “back door” into Flock, “as some in the media have claimed,” and that such activities have been legal.
The letter also serves as an explainer of how agencies access and use Flock products, and says that local laws set various requirements for those uses.
Langley defended the company and said it follows those local laws and strives for transparency.
“We strongly believe that LPRs, like all public safety technologies, are best used in concert with responsible policies, created by each community in accordance with its own laws and societal values,” he wrote. “That is why I have a team at Flock that has stood in front of more than a thousand city councils to answer their questions before voting to approve using our technology.”
In an interview with Government Technology, Josh Thomas, the company’s chief communications officer, added more context to the CEO’s letter.
He said that immigration and abortion stand as perennial controversial issues in the U.S., and they are getting mixed up with technological change.
“You are going to have controversy, and you will have people with agendas that cast a darker shadow,” he said. “You have to take all that with a grain of salt.”
So far, he said, the controversies attached to Flock have yet to have any “meaningful impact” to business, though he acknowledged that some client relationships are strained. That said, the company hopes to avoid overreacting to news cycles.
“We just don’t want whiplash,” he said, adding that one worry is that lawmakers will take in these stories and pass legislation that could hamper further growth and innovation in public safety technology.
Part of Flock’s defense against that possibility are policies laid out in Langley’s letter.
Flock has an in-app “attestation workflow” in Illinois that was built in response to a new state law that “prohibits out-of-state law enforcement agencies from searching Illinois LPR cameras for certain uses; namely, immigration offenses, gender affirming care and abortion.”
Also in Illinois, the company launched in June what Langley called a “proactive search term tool” that can “automatically flag and exclude any search of Illinois camera data with terms that indicate an impermissible purpose.”
In his letter, Langley said the company hopes to offer the tool to more agencies in the coming year.
Flock also plans in August to allow clients to require case numbers when using Flock, a move that, according to Langley, will “promote additional accountability, prevent misuse and better facilitate the identification of unauthorized searches.”
By the end of the year, he added, Flock will introduce “proactive auditing alerts” that will use artificial intelligence to spot suspicious searches and to otherwise boost accountability and transparency.
