Police-technology company Flock announced today a set of new requirements for law-enforcement access to its nationwide automatic license-plate reader (ALPR) camera network. The changes are presented as responses to public pressure, documented abuses, and contract cancellations tied to concerns about broad surveillance and misuse.
What’s changing
- Required criminal case number: Officers must now enter a criminal case number before performing a search. The field had been optional since its introduction last year; Flock has made it mandatory to better establish a legitimate investigatory basis for searches.
- Mandatory automated auditing: Flock is expanding an automated auditing feature that analyzes officer search activity and flags suspicious patterns to administrators. This tool was previously optional and the company has not disclosed its accuracy or allowed independent evaluation.
- Recommended shorter data retention: Flock now recommends agencies retain camera-collected data for seven days instead of 30, though agencies may override that guidance.
- Limits on cross-agency searches: Agencies can restrict other departments’ ability to query data from their cameras to searches made for certain stated reasons (for example, permitting searches for “kidnapping” but not for “immigration enforcement”).
Why the company moved
The changes respond in part to a Washington Post investigation that identified 46 cases in which officers were accused of using Flock cameras for unauthorized purposes, including stalking current or former partners. Flock operates roughly 120,000 cameras nationwide, creating a large searchable pool of location data that police departments can query.
Civil liberties groups have long warned about how such safeguards can be circumvented. The ACLU previously found that when Flock required officers to enter a reason for searches, some entered generic answers like “investigation,” while in one Oregon department officers entered “hehehe” 20 times. Because Flock does not verify case numbers, the new required field could be bypassed unless the auditing system effectively detects misuse.
Limits of the new safeguards
Flock says the now-mandatory automated auditing will help surface officers who try to bypass the new rules. The company has not shared details about the auditing tool’s effectiveness nor opened it to outside researchers. Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, calls the changes modest: supportive but insufficient without independent review and data access to judge whether abuse declines.
Backlash, contract cancellations and politics
Flock has faced criticism from diverse quarters; conservative commentator Tucker Carlson has claimed the technology contributes to a “slave state.” Several cities have reportedly ended Flock contracts amid protests — NPR found at least 30 such cases over the past year in a February survey, while the activist group DeFlock reports a higher number. Some states and municipalities are legislating limits or bans on license-plate readers, and some agencies are switching to competitors such as Axon and Motorola. Flock says the cancellations are small relative to the roughly 5,000 agencies the company serves.
Leadership responses
Flock CEO Garrett Langley attributes much of the backlash to misinformation, saying some people wrongly believe the company uses facial recognition or sells collected data to commercial buyers. Critics, including the ACLU, counter that Flock has at times misled city councils and decision-makers about its technology’s capabilities.
Langley framed the company’s shift as moving away from optional features toward an approach that enforces guardrails: "we have a responsibility to enforce guardrails, not provide optionality," he told MIT Technology Review.
Looking ahead
The new rules are incremental and fall short of the broader reforms civil liberties advocates have requested. While the measures could reduce some individual abuses, their effectiveness depends on how well the automated auditing works and whether independent researchers can access data and systems to evaluate outcomes. For Flock, regaining trust among activists, municipalities and the public will require more transparent evidence that the company’s safeguards actually prevent misuse.
