Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley unveiled several changes on Thursday to the company’s nationwide network of automatic license plate readers used by police, amid accusations that the sprawling system creates a surveillance state that violates constitutional rights.
More than 6,000 municipalities have contracts with Flock, with over 120,000 cameras active across 49 states, according to the company. Unlike red light cameras, which are triggered by a violation, Flock ALPRS captures a digital fingerprint of every passing vehicle. Police agencies can share data across state lines with other law enforcement departments, as well as with government agencies. The system has sparked questions about long-term tracking and privacy, in addition to possible infringement of Fourth Amendment rights for information obtained without a warrant or court order.
As questions build over who has access to the ALPRS data and how it is used, Langley this week said his company will be making several changes aimed at enhancing transparency and protecting against abuse.
Data collected by ALPRs is retained by Flock for 30 days before deletion. Under the new policy, Flock will now reduce its default data retention period to seven days. Law enforcement agencies that contract with Flock can still set their own data retention schedules and choose whether or not to share ALPR data with other agencies, including the federal government. Data from cameras police or federal authorities are using as part of an investigation are not deleted.
Flock said it is launching Evidence Mode for cases that could take longer than seven days. Flock will now change its default mode to require a search be “tied to a case number,” allowing the data to be preserved instead of deleted in the company’s database after seven days. Agencies contracting with Flock still hold control over whether to adopt the company’s standard or use their own timeline.
“This is this balance of privacy and safety, which is we don’t solve every crime in America, but we want privacy,” Langley said during an interview with Newsweek. “And that’s the trade-off we’re willing to make.”
In addition, Flock will start requiring a criminal case number to allow searches. Officers will be required to label every search with a code and automatically review all searches for “abnormal activity,” a previously voluntary feature. Law enforcement personnel will have to enter a specific case code tied to the investigation they are working on, and input the type of offense, meaning every vehicle search will require a reason. The changes are aimed at salving controversy that erupted over multiple officers who abused the system to stalk exes, among other issues.
“We have an obligation to establish a precedent,” Langley said. “And so for something like that, we require now the case code, and we got that one wrong. We should have required it out of the gate.
“As some of our fiercest critics have acknowledged, why not just mandate a case code?” he conceded. “Don’t give a reason, give a case code, criminal investigation code.”
Flock does not own the vehicle data, as law enforcement owns the data collected in its jurisdiction under its contractual agreements with the company.
Civil rights advocates continued to pummel Flock over allegations it is distributing “a mass government surveillance product” after the company announced policy changes Thursday.
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“Given that Flock’s latest announcement still appears more focused on addressing a perceived PR problem than the significant harms its products create, this is hardly the step forward Flock wants us to think it is,” the American Civil Liberties Union wrote in a press release Thursday.
“Transforming an exceptionally dangerous mass surveillance system into one that is fully protective of civil rights and civil liberties is a difficult, if not impossible task,” the organization wrote. “That is even more the case with a company like Flock, whose nearly $1 billion in venture capitalist funding has locked it into an operational model that seeks to trade our privacy for massive profits.”