Flock Safety

Flock Group Inc., doing business as Flock Safety, is a privately-held American manufacturer and operator of security hardware and software, particularly automated license plate recognition (ALPR), mass video surveillance, gunfire locator systems, and supporting software to integrate the data gathered by these technologies. Founded in 2017, Flock operates such systems under contract with law enforcement agencies, neighborhood associations, and private property owners. As of 2025, Flock says that it operates in over 5,000 communities across 49 U.S. states, and performs over 20 billion scans of vehicles in the U.S. every month. Flock Safety's network consists of cameras, image recognition, and machine learning, which share data with police departments. In 2026, Flock Safety relocated its headquarters to The Medici, an office building on Northside Parkway in the Westside neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia, more than doubling its office space after outgrowing its previous 14,000-square-foot headquarters in the Westside Provisions District on Howell Mill Road. Flock markets their services to law enforcement, homeowner associations and similar community organizations as tools for crime prevention and investigations. Flock has been described by critics as an example of mass surveillance, and their efficacy and effects on privacy and other civil liberties are the subject of public scrutiny, debate, and litigation. Corporate history Flock was founded in 2017. It was co-founded by three Georgia Tech alumni: Garrett Langley, Paige Todd, and Matt Feury. It began as a side project in which the three co-founders built their first video surveillance cameras by hand around Langley's dining room table. When a DeKalb County detective told Langley that his camera product had helped with solving a home break-in, Langley called the two other co-founders and told them to quit their jobs. By 2024, Flock's fixed cameras had been installed in over 4,000 cities across 42 states. By April of that year, Flock employed over 900 people. In June 2024, a judge in the Norfolk, Virginia, Circuit Court ruled that collecting location data from the city's 172 Flock ALPRs constitutes a search under the Fourth Amendment, and cannot be used as evidence in a criminal case when collected without a warrant. The ruling likened ALPR location databases to tracking devices, whose use by police was previously found unconstitutional without a warrant in United States v. Jones. Following this ruling, the company began to receive additional pushback from communities concerned about the legality of their operation. That October, Flock acquired Aerodome, a manufacturer of drones for law enforcement, and announced plans to introduce its own line of drones. As of 2025, Flock is used by over 6,000 municipalities in the United States. The company had raised a total $950 million in venture funding, with a $7.5 billion valuation. Much of Flock's initial investment came from private venture capital funds associated with Peter Thiel, which has drawn criticism contrasted with Thiel's perceived anti-democratic views, and support for surveillance technologies. Some cities have stopped working with Flock over the use of its data in immigration enforcement and for community privacy concerns, while others did so due to the company acting without the consent of the city. In October 2025, Flock Safety announced a partnership with Amazon's Ring security products, where residents with Ring cameras would have the option to share video data to public safety agencies in legal investigations. The plan came under scrutiny after Amazon ran an ad during Super Bowl LX that depicted the "Search Party" function for finding missing or lost pets, enhanced with AI surveillance. A joint decision was made to cancel the planned integration. Products Cameras According to The Center for Human Rights and Privacy, Flock's products, the Falcon and Sparrow, are cameras that monitor traffic and photograph the rear of all passing vehicles. Their software uses computer vision to read the vehicles' license plates and identify other distinguishing visual characteristics, sending that information to a central server via cellular network. Flock's servers then log the identifying data, with the time and location of the scan, in a searchable database, and compare all results with the National Crime Information Center, as well as state and local police watchlists of cars that are reported stolen or otherwise of interest to the police, instantly alerting nearby officers upon a match. Automatic license plate readers (ALPRs) like Flock's differ from traffic enforcement cameras in that they are for surveillance and criminal investigations, and do not perform any enforcement of traffic laws. According to Jill Walker Rettberg, the cameras are designed to not be noticed in the urban environment. In late 2026, Flock cameras began being hidden inside the backs of speed readers to avoid vandalism. Flock said that its system's ability to identify vehicles' visual features, which it calls "vehicle fingerprint technology", is unique among ALPR systems; they state that the system can identify vehicles' make, model, and color, as well as other distinguishing attributes such as mismatching colors, bumper stickers, dents, and temporary license plates, allowing investigators to search for recorded vehicles based on these characteristics. Flock said that its ALPRs can capture images of vehicles traveling at up to 100 miles per hour (160 km/h), at distances of up to 75 feet (23 m), regardless of lighting. Flock says its ALPRs "focus on vehicles, not people", and are intended to help police identify vehicle details, not personal information. Flock's Condor line of cameras track moving objects in a scene, including people, and Flock advertises its ability to "identify people and vehicles". Flock additionally provides a tool called FreeForm, which allows police to search for anything in a scene with natural language. Public records requests showed that police were searching for characteristics of individuals, including by race, gender, clothing, height, tattoos, and perceived political affiliation. Most Flock devices are powered by solar panels and rechargeable batteries, allowing them to operate in locations without access to utility power. Many are mounted on manufacturer-supplied poles, while others are affixed to existing lampposts or telephone poles. Flock also offers mobile trailers, which contain two PTZ cameras, one panoramic video camera, and deterrent devices such as flashing lights and a speaker. Flock's primary competitor in the ALPR market is Motorola Solutions. Flock offers software which integrates its ALPR and vehicle identification software into existing video camera systems, including IP cameras and Axon dashcams widely used in police vehicles. Jill Walker Rettberg stated Flock's network can be integrated into predictive policing platforms like Palantir. Person lookup tool In May 2025, Flock was developing a new product called Nova that the company referred as a "public safety data platform," which would supplement ALPR data with information from data breaches, public records, and commercially available data in order to track specific individuals without a warrant, and which as of May 2025 was already in use by law enforcement in an Early Access program. The Electronic Frontier Foundation described Flock Nova as a "dystopian panopticon". After the 404 Media reporting, the company decided not to include information from data breaches in Nova. Gunshot detector Launched in 2021, the Flock Raven is an audio gunfire locator, similar in function to ShotSpotter. The Raven records audio in 5-second increments, using artificial intelligence to analyze the sound clips for audible gunfire; when a gunshot is detected, the device estimates its location and alerts police. Like the ALPRs, they can be mounted on manufacturer-supplied poles and powered by solar panels. The company claims at least 1200 gunshots have been detected by their system with false positive and false negative rates below 1%. In October 2025, Flock announced that their Raven devices would begin listening for "human distress", with advertisements showing police being alerted when the device picks up on screaming. Drone Flock produces a drone marketed as a "Drone as First Responder" (DFR) system. It currently has one hardware variant named "Alpha". Drones can be stored in remotely-located "docks", then deployed to a given location with a remote trigger, including manual direction to GPS coordinates, or automated deployment to the location of LPR or gunshot detection alerts. The drones have both regular, thermal, and night-vision cameras, and can fly up to 60 mph. The drones can also read license plates with LPR technology, and can see plates from up to 2,000 feet away. The drones are marketed as a reactive rather than proactive solution, and are intended to only leave their dock when deployed by a human or automated alert. The drones have been criticized for mass surveillance risks, and militarization, as well as for collecting a more expansive set of data than traditional fixed-location cameras. PTZ cameras Flock also produces their "Condor" cameras, which are pan–tilt–zoom (PTZ) cameras primarily marketed as a method to avoid blind spots from fixed-angle cameras while having a wider scope than just ALPR functionalities. Condor cameras can automatically zoom in on cars, people, faces, phone screens, and other objects nearby. According to marketing material on Flock's website, they can also be controlled manually. Business model Flock owns and operates all of its devices, leasing them to various categories of customers. Competitors primarily market their products to law enforcement agencies, but Flock also markets its products to community organizations and private entities; some customers share data from their systems with police agencies. Marketing materials center on efforts to reduce crime, and the company uses bird-themed product names. Until 2026, the sales team conducted surveillance demos in Georgia using a real youth gymnastics center, playgrounds, schools, and a pool. Flock has developed relationships with several mayors. After Denver city council voted to end the city's relationship with the company, the mayor negotiated a free six month extension of the contract for which no approval was required. Efficacy Some law enforcement agencies have said that the technology is "[h]elpful at generating investigative leads and solving crimes that may have otherwise gone unsolved", with some additionally claiming a deterrent effect. In 2024, Cyrus Farivar, writing for Forbes, questioned a statistic crediting Flock Safety's technology with an 80% reduction in residential burglaries in San Marino, California in early 2021 compared to the same period in 2020, with Farivar's piece asserting that burglaries actually slightly increased, and that serious crimes remained nearly unchanged. Farivar also questioned similar claims from Flock regarding Fort Worth, Dayton, and Lexington. A 2021 study of Flock's Falcon camera by "surveillance research firm IPVM ... found a 10% error rate in the camera output". Flock then halted sales to IPVM and disputed the accuracy of IPVM's findings. Inaccuracies in Flock's cameras have resulted in wrongful arrests in several cities. In 2025, a series of vulnerabilities in Flock cameras was identified, including hardcoded credentials and connection details, cleartext storage of code, and an enabled debug interface. Flock stated these vulnerabilities would require physical access to the device to exploit. Later in 2025, a separate cybersecurity flaw was found by researchers, which allowed anyone to access live camera feeds and other data from the Flock Condor line through publicly exposed live streams and administrator control panels. Flock stated the issue involved a limited number of devices caused by a misconfiguration and said it had been remedied. Privacy concerns and potential misuse Privacy concerns have been raised with respect to ALPRs generally, including Flock's systems. Additionally, Flock's surveillance model has spurred debate. Flock's surveillance technology is often criticized for its broadening of public surveillance and effect on civil liberties, as described by privacy experts and organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The EFF argues that ALPRs create more problems than they solve. In March 2022, the ACLU released a report criticizing Flock Safety's business model and products. In 2023, the ACLU acknowledged some uses of ALPRs could be acceptable, but emphasized the need for careful controls: There's no reason the technology should be used to create comprehensive records of everybody's comings and goings — and that is precisely what ALPR databases like Flock's are doing. In our country, the government should not be tracking us unless it has individualized suspicion that we're engaged in wrongdoing. An activist created a crowdsourced map of Flock cameras called DeFlock; the project is run by Will Freeman, a Colorado-based organizer. Langley called the project "terroristic", and Flock sent a cease and desist letter to the project. In October 2024, the Institute for Justice filed a federal lawsuit against the Norfolk Police Department on behalf of two local residents, asserting that the department's use of Flock ALPRs constitutes illegal surveillance in violation of the Fourth Amendment. In California, state law prohibits sharing license plate reader data with federal agencies, but in 2025 it was reported that several state and municipal law enforcement agencies nonetheless did so. In 2025, it was reported that Flock data had been queried for use in immigration enforcement. A pilot program of investigation with Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations was initiated to help combat human trafficking and fentanyl distribution. Flock halted the program in August because of "confusion and concerns" about the purpose of the investigations. Local governments shared the data by either blindly approving the inquiries or unknowingly signing onto the national sharing option. Langley falsely stated that Flock did not have federal contracts. In November 2025, the City of Verona voted to not renew its contract with Flock, which would then expire in April and July, 2026. Months after voting to not extend the contract, but prior to the expiry date of the original contracts, Verona mayor Luke Diaz stated they had requested that Flock remove the cameras multiple times since the vote, with Flock not removing the cameras. Flock later reached out to the city with a sales team, trying to sell a new contract. Flock objected to the city removing the cameras themselves when asked in early January, after which the city covered the cameras with trash bags. The cameras were later removed by Flock on February 4th, just under 3 months after the initial vote. Flock stated that the cameras could be remotely deactivated at any time, and that they were not operating during the time they remained up. Flock stated that they have a "standard offboarding process" for camera removal, and that "mid-term contract cancellations follow a separate process." In December 2025, 404 Media reported that Flock left at least 60 of its Condor cameras "around the country exposed to the open internet, where anyone could watch them, download 30 days worth of video archive, and change settings, see log files, and run diagnostics". In late June 2026, ABC affiliate WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported that after a Flock contract with the city of Cleveland expired following a 3-1 vote against renewing Flock's contract with the city, the cameras remained on and were still being used by local police. Cleveland Police sergeant Freddy Diaz stated that the cameras would remain operational "at minimum" until July 15th when another meeting with the city council would take place to allow for a secondary review of the contract with Flock. Local activists called the situation "incredibly disappointing", and called the police department's support for the technology "not compelling". In 2026, a review of media reports since 2024 by the Institute for Justice revealed that officers from across the United States have been abusing Flock along with other ALPR systems to stalk former romantic partners. Some of these cases were discovered by private citizens and journalists through noticing patterns of abuse in public records from police departments, raising concerns about underreporting and lack of oversight by authorities. In June 2026, WSLS-TV reported that a Flock device was installed on a Roanoke homeowner's yard without prior notice, and was identified as a Flock Raven device upon inspection by a police officer called to the scene by the homeowner. The Roanoke City Council had voted in April to approve 75 installations of Flock Raven devices, but her address was not on the approved list, and none of the installations were scheduled to take place until July. The gunshot detector was later removed from her property, and the city later determined that 30 of the 41 devices installed up to that point were placed in unapproved locations. On July 10, 2026, the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) stated it would not renew its contract with Flock Safety when it was set to expire that Saturday over civil liberties and privacy concerns, claiming that concerns from residents prompted the decision. The LAPD's chief information officer stated they wanted more contractual terms and protections, and that a new contract was being drafted. Flock said they believed the decision was based on "misconceptions" and hoped to resume service soon. In an interview, CEO Garrett Langley responded to the activism raising concerns about Flock. He said he believed there were two types of activists groups, praising ACLU and EFF for their methods and approaches to dealing with the concerns while calling the Deflock project terrorism and comparing them to Antifa. He later apologized for calling them terrorists, and called the comments a mistake. Gizmodo stated it seemed like a public relations push rather than a change of heart. References External links Media related to Flock Safety at Wikimedia Commons