Garrett Langley, the founder and chief executive of surveillance firm Flock, announced the company is implementing new safeguards to prevent police misuse of its technology. Langley acknowledged in an interview that the company should have acted sooner to address instances where officers used the firm's license plate readers and cameras to stalk individuals or track romantic partners. The firm is reducing its standard data retention period from 30 days to seven days and making automated audit features mandatory for all law enforcement customers.
The decision follows reports of police officers across the United States being fired or resigning after using Flock's nationwide database for unauthorized purposes. Reported incidents include officers tracking current or former romantic partners, stalking strangers, and in one case, searching for a woman who had obtained an abortion. At least 50 cities have terminated their contracts with the firm this year following public backlash over privacy and surveillance concerns.
The technical changes include a mandatory auditing system that automatically flags unusual search behavior and creates a log of all data queries. Langley stated that while the audit feature was previously optional, the frequency of detected misuse led the company to make it a standard requirement. Additionally, Langley expressed support for a policy advocated by civil liberties groups that would require officers to provide an active case number before searching the database.
The day-to-day impact centers on officer accountability and data privacy. Police officers will now have their search patterns monitored by automated software that flags "abnormal" use to their departments. For the public, the requirement for a case number—if fully implemented—would mean an officer could no longer legally search for a license plate on a personal whim without a documented investigation. These changes respond to documented cases of "bad data" and "wrongful arrest" that Langley attributed to officers failing to follow established rules.
The knock-on effects include a shift in how private surveillance firms manage public data. Langley previously argued that a private company should not dictate data retention limits, but has now accepted that responsibility as an "expert" in the field. This sets a precedent for other surveillance providers like Amazon’s Ring, which recently ended its partnership with Flock. What happens next involves the continued rollout of these mandatory audits and the seven-day data expiration policy across all police departments using the service. Specific effective dates for the universal rollout were not reported.