Flock, the police technology company whose cameras track the movements of vehicles through a nationwide network, is implementing several new safeguards to its products. The move comes amid growing public backlash over privacy and police transparency tied to automatic license plate readers, and the company says it is responding to those concerns.
The changes fall into three broad areas that the company describes as privacy, security and accountability. Flock's chief executive, Garrett Langley, announced the overhaul in a video posted on the company's website, framing it as a new chapter for the firm.
The most concrete change concerns how long information is stored. Flock said it will cut the default data retention period from 30 days down to seven. Langley argued that the shorter window still works for investigators, noting that about 90 percent of investigative searches happen within seven days.
To handle cases that need more time, the company said it will roll out a feature called evidence mode in the coming weeks. That option would allow detectives to preserve specific data as evidence for an active investigation, rather than keeping all records for everyone by default.
On accountability, Flock said misuse detection will become mandatory for its law enforcement customers, backed by automatic lockouts. Under so-called proactive lockouts, when a user's activity is flagged as abnormal, the system will automatically suspend access pending an administrator review. By the end of the year, the company added, case codes will be required for searches and audit assistance will be required for all law enforcement users.
The scale of the system helps explain the concern. More than 120,000 Flock cameras across the country automatically scan each license plate that passes, logging the vehicle along with the time and location into a database that officers can use to track cars. Critics call it a mass surveillance network, and amid protests over privacy, several cameras have recently been vandalized in cities across the United States.
Not everyone is convinced the new measures go far enough. The nonpartisan nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology responded that the announcement was, in its words, ultimately the same just trust us policy with a fresh coat of paint, signaling that scrutiny of the company's practices is likely to continue.