Flock Safety CEO Concedes Police Misuse While Defending License-Plate System

Flock Safety provides automated license-plate-reading (ALPR) cameras to municipalities across the United States. The technology is credited with aiding investigations, yet critics have raised concerns that it enables law-enforcement agencies to track individuals without adequate oversight.

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During an exclusive interview on The Drivecast, founder and CEO Garrett Langley acknowledged that “the abuse is a problem” and said the company must work to reduce it to zero. He explained that early versions of Flock’s service did not require subscribing municipalities to use multi-factor authentication (MFA), which made unauthorized access easier. Flock now mandates MFA and highlights its audit logs and abnormal-behavior detection as safeguards.

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Langley argued that Flock’s auditing tools are among the few in the industry that flag “pretty weird” activity, prompting investigations even when conduct is not illegal. Langley also called for stronger state regulations that would require similar auditing capabilities for all law-enforcement systems.

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• Cases solved: Over 1 million in the most recent year, according to the company.

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• Misuse identified: Audit logs have exposed alleged police misuse in Texas and Georgia; the company did not disclose the exact number of incidents.

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“To your point on auditability and accountability, yeah, I actually think this is a problem more broadly in law enforcement—that we’re one of the only systems that actually has auditing and has abnormal behavior detection in it.” — Garrett Langley, founder and CEO

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