GoKawiilResidents of an Atlanta suburb have been rocked by the revelation that sales employees at Flock have been accessing sensitive cameras in the town to demonstrate the company’s surveillance technology to police departments around the country. The cameras accessed have included surveillance tech in a children’s gymnastics room, a playground, a school, a Jewish community center, and a pool.
Flock has taken issue with the way that residents and activists have characterized the access but confirmed that the camera access did happen as part of its sales demonstrations. A blog post by Jason Hunyar, a Dunwoody, Georgia resident who learned about Flock accessing the city’s cameras by obtaining Flock access logs via a public records request is called “ Why Are Flock Employees Watching Our Children? ”
Flock has pushed back against this characterization on social media, in a blog post , at city council meetings, and in a statement to 404 Media: “The city of Dunwoody is one city in our demo partner program,” a Flock spokesperson told 404 Media. “The cities involved in this program have authorized select Flock employees to demonstrate new products and features as we develop them in partnership with the city. Moreover, select engineers can access accounts with customer permission to debug or fix any issues that may arise. No one is spying on children in parks, as the substack incorrectly asserts.”
Flock also argued that it is more transparent than any other surveillance company because it creates these access logs at all, and they can be obtained using public records requests. “Also, I must state the irony of the situation. We're one of the few technology companies in this space dedicated to radical transparency [...] I understand the concern from the resident, but it is unequivocally false to assert that Flock, or the police, or city officials are doing anything other than using technology to stop major crimes in the city.”
The records Hunyar obtained, however, show that some of the cameras that were accessed were in sensitive locations, including the pool at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (in Dunwoody), the children’s gymnastics room at MJCCA, and several fitness centers and studios. The access logs obtained by Hunyar show at the very least how expansive Flock’s surveillance systems can be in a single city, encompassing not just cameras purchased by the city but also cameras purchased by private businesses.
A picture of Dunwoody's "Real Time Crime Center," which is "powered by Flock Safety." Image: City of Dunwoody
After Hunyar wrote about what he found, Flock has agreed to stop using Dunwoody’s cameras to demonstrate its product. Flock’s FAQ page states that “Flock customers own their data” and “Flock will not share, sell, or access your data.” It also states “nobody from Flock Safety is accessing or monitoring your footage.” Flock also published a blog post that notes “one of the benefits communities value most about Flock technology is the ability for law enforcement to directly access privately owned cameras, if and only if the organization allows them to, for crime-solving and security purposes.”
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