Flock’s CEO Acknowledges That Police Misconduct ‘Is an Issue.’ He Then Justifies His Company’s Actions.

      Flock

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      Flock has emerged as a contentious topic throughout the United States. I personally became ensnared in the system, which tracked me for several days and led to a surprise confrontation with four police officers targeting my wife and me. I am among the millions affected by numerous errors each month. However, these millions of mistakes highlight a greater concern regarding the misuse of the technology and platform itself.

      In an exclusive interview on The Drivecast, Flock Safety Founder and CEO Garrett Langley acknowledged, “The abuse is a problem.” He recognizes the issue and stated, “We need to continue to reduce that to zero. Any level of abuse is unacceptable.”

      You can listen to the full conversation where Langley addresses the matter of police abusing Flock's systems below.

      Langley confessed that in previous years, Flock did not mandate that municipalities subscribing to their services implement multi-factor authentication (MFA). Not having MFA made it significantly easier for unauthorized individuals to access Flock's systems, complicating audits and tracing who accessed and viewed information. Flock now enforces the use of MFA.

      However, the requirement of MFA alone is insufficient and hasn't rectified the misuse problems. Langley remarked, “Regarding auditability and accountability, I genuinely believe this is a broader issue within law enforcement—our system is one of the few that actually includes auditing and abnormal behavior detection.”

      He took responsibility, stating, “All the incidents you see occurring are flagged by our system as ‘that seems unusual.’ It might not be illegal—innocent until proven guilty—but a criminal investigation should have taken place.”

      Furthermore, Langley emphasized the lack of regulations governing the use of the technology his company provides, expressing, “I wish more state regulations mandated that every system law enforcement utilizes must incorporate this level of advanced auditing and abnormal detection.” He added, “We need to enhance our efforts in this area.”

      As for the current misuse of Flock’s platform, Langley reiterated, “The abuse is a problem. We must work to bring that down to zero. Any level of abuse is unacceptable.” However, he defended Flock’s services by pointing out, “To be very clear, we shouldn’t overlook that over a million cases were solved last year using this technology, and the rate of abuse is exceedingly low compared to that.”

      While MFA has been mandated and audit logs used to expose police misuse in various states, including Texas and Georgia—where Langley resides—the leader of Flock did not elaborate on what additional safeguards are being implemented in the system to prevent future misuse by authorities.

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