Flock Safety’s license plate recognition cameras have made headlines for a variety of reasons in recent years, ranging from suspects allegedly setting the devices on fire to cases where the system mistakenly flagged vehicles that had not actually been stolen.
Guessing Headlights recently covered one such incident involving The Drive’s Director of Content and Product, Joel Feder, who was pulled over after a Flock camera incorrectly identified the Range Rover he was testing as a stolen vehicle.
The mix-up was traced to the vehicle’s temporary 3410 DTM license plate, which the camera read as 34 DTM, triggering an alert that prompted officers to investigate. Police later confirmed the vehicle was not stolen.
Flock Safety has maintained that its camera alerts are intended to provide investigative leads rather than serve as definitive proof of a crime. Even so, reports of false alerts and allegations that some officers have misused the system, including claims that it was used to stalk women, have fueled ongoing concerns about privacy and oversight.
Despite the criticism, Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley has defended the technology, pointing to cities such as San Francisco as examples of how the cameras have helped reduce crime. He has also said he hopes to see the system adopted in all 17,000 cities across the United States.
Flock CEO Claims His Technology Made San Francisco Safe
Speaking on The Drivercast podcast, Langley stated that the mayor of San Francisco approached Flock Safety for help amid rising crime rates. Following the deployment of Flock cameras across the city, Langley claimed that crime fell significantly. He said:
“What we’ve noticed is in certain places like San Francisco, four years ago, you could get away with almost any crime. Then two or three years ago, Mayor Breed and Mayor Lurie said, ‘Flock, we need help. It’s too easy to be a criminal, and our businesses are leaving, our people are leaving. This isn’t working for us.'”
“We deployed hundreds of license plate readers, we deployed our drones, we deployed our real-time crime center software to make officers more efficient. Now it’s one of the safest cities in America. Mayor Lurie has one of the highest approval ratings of any major city mayor—he might actually have the highest, last I checked.”
Langley Reveals His Goal of Expanding From 7,000 to 17,000 Cities
The Flock Safety CEO then opened up about his vision of society in the future, revealing that he hopes to expand the San Francisco model to cities across the U.S. He said:
“For me, the future is a future where more cities look like San Francisco, where crime is incredibly hard to get away with—so hard that people just choose not to do it. That might seem like a distant future, but it’s happening in San Francisco.
“I think we’re going to do the same thing in Oakland. We’re in 7,000 cities today, and I’d like to get us to all 17,000 cities in America and create that future, because it’s quite doable.
“Whatever technology we need to build to help get there while maintaining our local societal norms is what we’re planning to do. That might sound crazy, but I said it 10 years ago, and now it’s really happening at scale. It’s a pretty exciting time.”
LAPD Walks Away From Flock Over Privacy Concerns
While Langley envisions a significant expansion of Flock’s camera network to improve public safety, Guessing Headlights recently reported that the Los Angeles Police Department decided not to renew its three-year contract with Flock Safety, which began in 2023.
Citing residents’ concerns about how data collected by the Flock system was being used, with many claiming the technology violates privacy rights, the LAPD opted not to renew the contract. Dean Gialamas, LAPD’s chief information officer, said:
“This contract is not being renewed because of serious concerns around civil liberties and civil rights issues, particularly around privacy and the data that is being collected from these cameras.
“The LAPD had to make a difficult decision, in this case discontinuing using Flock services until we can get those data, privacy, security, and sharing concerns ironed out through a contractual relationship.”
Discussions over a new agreement with Flock Safety are ongoing, with the LAPD seeking stronger privacy, data storage, and data-sharing protections in any future contract.
As Flock Safety pushes to expand across the United States, addressing privacy concerns will likely be one of its biggest challenges. Whether it can overcome those concerns remains to be seen.