Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley is publicly calling for a “compromise” between privacy and safety as his company faces mounting criticism over the potential misuse of its surveillance technology. Langley made the remarks during a recent Fox News interview, saying, “How do we have our safety, and how do we balance privacy?”
The backlash intensified in 2026 after The Washington Post identified 46 cases in which police officers were accused of using Flock technology for unauthorized purposes, including stalking current or former romantic partners. Responding to one alleged victim’s account on CBS News, Langley said, “I apologize. It kills me that she went through that,” while also arguing, “I don’t think that Flock created police abuse. I think we’re the first company to ever shine a light on it and build the tools to find it.”
Criticism has come from across the political spectrum. Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed accused his opponent of supporting “mass proliferation of Flock cameras,” and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders posted, “STOP AI MASS SURVEILLANCE. STOP FLOCK.” On the Republican side, three House members introduced a bill that would bar the federal government from purchasing automated surveillance systems using facial recognition, biometric IDs, or license plate recognition, explicitly naming Flock Safety cameras.
Flock has made some adjustments in response, reducing its default data retention period from 30 days to seven days and requiring a case code before data can be accessed. However, both changes can be overridden — officers can extend retention using a feature called Evidence Mode. The ACLU acknowledged the moves may be “a step in the right direction” but cautioned they could amount to “just another Flock PR move,” depending on how Evidence Mode operates.
Langley has called on state regulators to criminalize the illegal use of Flock data and acknowledged that the technology currently operates with insufficient oversight, stating, “Today, it is too often that in Flock and in other technologies, there’s no regulation. There’s no accountability, and we think that’s wrong.”
Source: TechCrunch