Statement in Response to Recent Reports

In response to the report, "Leaving the Door Wide Open: Flock Surveillance Systems Expose Washington Data to Immigration Enforcement".

As a company dedicated to ensuring that communities are able to deploy cutting edge technology to enhance safety, while holding the values of privacy, transparency, and accountability as core tenets, we appreciate the attention that researchers and advocacy groups pay to our efforts. Had this group reached out for information, which they did not, we’d would have been happy to provide data to clear up the many mischaracterizations and factual errors that appear throughout this report.

The report in question states that, “Flock Safety automated license plate reader (ALPR) networks have become increasingly common in Washington state.” This is true, and it is because of the very real public safety effects that Flock has on communities across the state. From helping locate vehicles wanted in hit-and-runs, to identifying homicide suspects, and bringing justice to victims of kidnapping and abuse, Flock technology is making communities across Washington safer today. 

However, the remainder of the report contains many inaccuracies, which we seek to clarify below.

• Flock is committed to helping communities improve public safety while remaining in compliance with their local laws, agency technology policies, and according to their community’s values. An important part of this equation is ensuring that all Flock customers own and control access to their data. Every Flock customer has complete control over their sharing relationships, and Flock never shares customer data without their knowledge or permission.
• Local public safety agencies collaborate with federal agencies on a wide variety of serious crimes, including human and narcotics trafficking and multi-jurisdictional cases. If agencies choose to collaborate with federal agencies, that is wholly up to them. Flock never enrolls agencies in automatic data sharing, and sharing relationships can be revoked at any time. 
• Months ago, we also made the change to remove federal agencies from National and State Lookup altogether.
• The report states that, “many have expressed concerns related to privacy impacts and the systems’ possible use for civil immigration enforcement and/or to criminalize access to reproductive healthcare. Similarly, ALPR data is among the forms of surveillance that could be used to criminalize those seeking gender affirming healthcare, as privacy advocates have warned.” These are slippery slope arguments that are not in line with the thousands of use cases of Flock technology being used to solve violent and property crime every week. We are unaware of any credible case of Flock technology being used to prosecute a woman for reproductive healthcare or anyone for gender affirming healthcare.
• Even so, to help protect against these concerns in jurisdictions where these uses are prohibited, we have introduced keyword filters that can block attempts to search for terms related to civil immigration or reproductive healthcare where state law forbids it. If a prohibited search is made, the filter blocks that search from hitting cameras in those jurisdictions.

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Flock Safety partners with 6,000+ communities across the country to help them make informed, transparent decisions about public safety technology that align with their local values and priorities.