Flock CEO: We haven’t ‘fired’ any police departments as customers

Flock CEO Garrett Langley said that his company has not ended any contracts with its customers over abuse of its products.

Speaking to TechCrunch editor-in-chief Connie Loizos at the Disrupt 2026 conference in San Francisco, Langley responded to criticisms facing the company about the misuse of its license plate reader cameras by police departments. It comes after streams of reporting identifying dozens of police officers who have been arrested, fired, or told to resign after being caught abusing access to Flock’s nationwide database of license plate detections, oftentimes to stalk people without permission.

Langley told Loizos that the company would end a relationship with a customer where there was clear widespread abuse of its systems. But, the CEO said, it has not to date “fired” a customer, as he put it, such as a police department or law enforcement agency. Langley said Flock had the debate internally, but argued that the company should not take away its product from a community that might need it in its efforts to fight crime. 

“If a customer knowingly broke the law, we would fire them immediately. That’s very easy,” Langley said.

“Most of the debate is nuanced into ‘what if two officers out of fifty were caught?’ Today, we haven’t fired any customers, but it’s not off the table in the case of some pretty drastic law-abiding issue,” added Langley. 

The abuse of Flock’s systems and the data it collects is the latest in an array of controversies embroiling the Atlanta, Georgia-based maker of license plate reader cameras. Flock has more than 100,000 cameras around the United States, which allow local police departments and federal agencies to track the whereabouts of vehicle license plates and people as they pass by. 

Protest outside Disrupt during Flock interview

Flock has become a flashpoint in the surveillance debate, prompting towns, cities, and communities to reject the company’s cameras by canceling their contracts or allowing them to expire, citing privacy fears. 

There have been multiple reports of Flock reactivating cameras against their customers’ wishes, prompting local residents to tape trash bags over the cameras and other times destroying them.

While Langley spoke on the Disrupt Stage, demonstrators gathered outside the venue to protest against Flock’s AI-powered surveillance, wearing costumes like the red robes from “Handmaid’s Tale” and cardboard replicas of Flock cameras on their heads, while clips from the “1984” movie played on a loudspeaker behind them. Others carried signs declaring “Flock off” or, “Flock = ICE.”

Flock does not have a direct contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but the agency has reportedly accessed Flock data in the past by collaborating with local police departments that use Flock cameras.

Ashley Ortiz, an organizer with local progressive activist group The Wolves, told TechCrunch that she wants local lawmakers to take constituents’ concerns about Flock more seriously.

“I think Flock is going to be the start of a lot more community building, because we can come together around something as bipartisan as not enjoying mass surveillance,” said Ortiz. “We have Republicans who join us, conservatives who agree, we have sovereign citizens cutting down Flock cameras, so it’s not just the left who doesn’t want AI-powered mass surveillance.”

When asked what questions she has for Langley, Ortiz said, “What about AI-powered mass surveillance should be making us feel safe?”

In answer to that, Langley argued, on stage, that its license plate tracking system has been allowing police departments to solve more crimes and to solve them faster. He offered anecdotes, such as a stolen car with a baby in the back seat being found quickly thanks, he said, to Flock systems.

Still, Flock has also faced criticism forcybersecurity issues, and camera accuracy issues that have resulted in dozens of police stops and wrongful arrests, including a journalist who was driving a review vehicle.

Some communities have replaced their Flock contracts with rival surveillance companies, such as Axon, the maker of Taser weapons and police bodycams. 

On a potential sale to Axon, Langley said the company was not considering a sale. “No, we’ve no desire to sell the company.”

Source: techcrunch.com