GoKawiil
Tech News
Flock Safety, maker of AI-powered surveillance cameras and license-plate readers used by police departments, is reportedly cutting several hundred jobs, according to people familiar with the matter. The layoffs come as the company faces mounting criticism over privacy concerns tied to its surveillance technology.
Flock Safety plans to lay off about 270 employees, roughly 18 percent of its 1,500-person workforce, effective at the end of October, according to sources cited by Reuters. The cuts follow a recent employee buyout program reported by WIRED, and it remains unclear how many departures are voluntary versus involuntary layoffs.
A former police officer argues that Flock Safety's automated license plate recognition cameras have replaced guesswork with instant, precise identification of stolen vehicles. The Atlanta startup, founded in 2017, installs solar-powered roadside cameras that photograph passing cars, log identifying details, and check plates against the FBI's national database in real time, alerting officers to matches.
Liz Lindseay Isaacs told a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee that a Flock Safety license-plate camera wrongly linked her Dodge Durango to a fatal hit-and-run, leading to her arrest and 13 days in jail, including time in solitary confinement. Prosecutors dropped the charges after realizing the vehicle identification was wrong, and she is now suing the Florida police department involved, alleging two officers falsely claimed to see damage on her vehicle. Flock told CNN the incident stemmed from human error unrelated to its technology.
San Francisco officials say car-related crime has fallen sharply in the city, pointing in part to the deployment of Flock Safety's automated license-plate-reading cameras. The report examines how much of that decline can be attributed to the camera network versus other factors like policing strategy and broader crime trends.
An investigation into Flock Safety's automated license-plate camera system argues that its core design, not isolated misuse, allows police and other agencies to query cameras they never purchased or deployed. The report cites a case in Georgia where a woman's ex-boyfriend appeared to track her movements via the network, suggesting data from local cameras can flow well beyond their intended jurisdiction.
U.S. District Judge Sara Hill ruled that a Tulsa County sheriff's deputy violated the Fourth Amendment by searching Flock Safety's license-plate database without a warrant, based solely on a vehicle having California plates. Because the search lacked justification, Hill ordered evidence from the resulting car search—including an alleged 91 pounds of methamphetamine—suppressed as 'fruit of the poisonous tree.' Hill also described Flock's camera network as a form of 'indiscriminate mass surveillance' that tracks all vehicles passing its cameras.
Federal judge Sara Hill ruled that a Tulsa County deputy's warrantless search of Flock's nationwide license-plate reader database violated the Fourth Amendment, suppressing evidence of roughly 91 pounds of methamphetamine found during the stop. The case began when a deputy tailed a car solely because of its out-of-state plates, then used Flock's database to review over 50 prior sightings of the vehicle before searching it. Separately, Senators Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have introduced legislation to ban license plate reader networks like Flock's nationwide.
Senator Bernie Sanders introduced the Ban Flock Act, which would prohibit federal agencies from operating automatic license plate reader systems or accessing data from such systems run by local police or private vendors like Flock. The bill allows exceptions only for toll collection and future congressional approvals capped at 48-hour data retention, and would cut federal grants to state and local governments that fail to comply, while allowing lawsuits and enforcement by state attorneys general.
Several US municipalities, including Fort Worth, Castle Rock, Dunwoody, Fulton County and Middletown, are piloting or adopting Flock's Drones-as-First-Responder system, which launches rooftop-docked drones automatically in response to 911 calls, license-plate alerts, or gunshot detection. Fort Worth's two-month pilot logged 162 drone dispatches with a 112-second average response time, arriving first at 76 calls and letting officers clear 11 without an in-person visit. Flock gained its drone capability by acquiring Aerodome, a maker of drones with HD and thermal cameras.
After canceling its Flock contract, St. Lucie County, Florida discovered 66 license-plate-reading cameras installed instead of the 52 it had authorized. The sheriff's office admitted to owning three of the extras without explaining their deployment, leaving 11 cameras that no local police agency has claimed. The county has wrapped the unclaimed devices in plastic with notices stating they will be removed within 30 days.
According to 404 Media's review of public records and court documents, the Trump administration is using the decades-old HIDTA anti-drug trafficking grant program to require cities to send automated license plate reader data from Flock, Axon and other vendors to federal servers. That data is accessible to multiple federal, state and local law enforcement agencies, and in some cases is further shared with the DEA's National License Plate Reader Program.