Garrett Langley, CEO of Flock Safety, said the country needed to find a “middle ground” between privacy and safety.
“When people talk about privacy or safety, they’re prioritizing the wrong thing. What we have to prioritize as a country is compromise,” Langley said in a recent interview with Fox News. “How do we balance safety and privacy?”
Mr. Langley’s appearance on Fox News was just the latest interview he has given as the company faces growing public backlash over concerns that Flock’s surveillance cameras, drones and license plate recognition technology could be misused.
These concerns are not just hypothetical. The Washington Post recently identified 46 cases in which police officers were accused of using flocking technology for unauthorized purposes, including stalking wives, girlfriends, or ex-lovers.
After listening to an interview with one of the alleged victims, Langley told CBS News: “I’m sorry. I’m devastated that she went through that.” “I don’t think Flock caused police abuse. I think we were the first company to shine a light on this and build the tools to find it,” he said.
Just as the data center backlash has become a major issue on both the left and the right, both Democratic and Republican politicians are starting to take aim at the Flock.
On the left, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan recently accused his opponent, Mike Rogers, of “supporting the proliferation of flash cameras everywhere and everywhere, monitoring every move to gather intelligence without being noticed.” And Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders posted, “Stop AI mass surveillance. Stop the herd.”
On the right, three House Republicans recently introduced a bill that would prohibit the federal government from purchasing automated surveillance systems “including Flock Safety cameras” that use facial recognition, biometric ID, and license plate recognition.
Flock has already made several changes in response to criticism, reducing its default data retention period from 30 days to seven days and requiring a case code before accessing data. However, both of these changes can be overwritten. For example, police can use a setting called Evidence Mode to store data for longer periods of time.
In response to the changes announced by Flock, the American Civil Liberties Union said, “Although Flock has not reduced the default retention period to the ACLU-recommended 48 hours, its proposal could be a step in the right direction. However, whether this is a real change or just a PR move by Flock will depend on how its ‘evidence mode’ works.”
Langley said state regulators should “pass legislation that would make (illegal use of flock data) a criminal offense.” In an interview with Fox News, he pointed to changes the company has already made, but added: “Too often today, with Flock and other technologies, there is no regulation. There is no accountability. We think that’s wrong.”
TechCrunch will be asking Langley questions about these issues when he appears on stage at the Disrupt conference in October.
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