Flock Safety introduces strict access controls amid privacy backlash and contract cancellations
The Los Angeles Police Department has ended its three-year agreement with the AI camera provider, while Amazon-owned Ring cancels a planned integration, as the company faces scrutiny over stalking allegations and exposed data streams.
Flock Safety, a provider of AI-powered automatic license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, is implementing new security updates following widespread criticism over privacy violations and law enforcement misuse. The company will require case codes for searches and enable mandatory audit assistance to flag abnormal behaviour, after reports emerged of officers using the system to stalk individuals. Concurrently, Amazon-owned Ring cancelled a planned integration with Flock Safety following public outcry over the surveillance firm's ties to law enforcement agencies, including ICE. The LAPD also ended its three-year contract with Flock, citing the need for clearer data ownership terms, while communities across the US continue to cancel or deactivate contracts due to concerns over data access and usage.
Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley has acknowledged responsibility for misuse of the platform and is rolling out updates requiring case codes for all searches and mandatory audit assistance to lock out suspicious users. The Audit Assistance feature flags abnormal search behaviour and immediately locks out suspicious users until an administrator reviews their activity. All users will be required to enter case codes to run searches, a measure designed to limit queries for personal or nefarious purposes, though administrators can override this for emergencies such as tracking a missing child, with such overrides automatically flagged for review.
The Los Angeles Police Department ended its three-year contract with Flock as it negotiates a new agreement with very clear terms regarding data ownership and access. An unnamed spokesperson for Flock told media outlets that unspecified misconceptions led to the pause. The LAPD CIO stated the arrangement ended while working on a new contract that has very clear terms about who owns the data collected and what happens to it.
Ring stated the cancellation of its integration with Flock was due to the project requiring significantly more time and resources than anticipated, without explicitly citing public backlash or ties to ICE. Ring confirmed in a statement that the integration never launched, meaning no Ring customer videos were sent to Flock Safety. Flock’s own statement noted that the companies had explored whether their platforms could responsibly complement one another but chose to cancel the integration following extensive engagement with customers and community stakeholders.
A cease and desist letter from Flock Safety was sent to The Saturday Salon, a lecture series in Newport Beach, California, demanding they stop hosting discussions about Flock’s surveillance technology. Tech YouTuber Benn Jordan and 404 Media reported that livestreams from more than 60 of Flock’s Condor cameras were exposed online without authentication. An exposed dataset revealed that some AI annotators classifying license plates for Flock are located in the Philippines; this dataset disappeared after 404 Media contacted the company.
A Tennessee candidate for Congress was charged with felony vandalism for allegedly shooting Flock cameras, with the Blount County sheriff’s office confirming the suspect admitted to the act. Joel Feder reported that Flock cameras tracked him in Minnesota and triggered a police response over stolen plates, which were not stolen, with Flock maintaining its systems worked correctly.
