Flock Evidence Policy

Introduction

Flock is committed to delivering exceptional service to our customers by providing reliable access to digital evidence that may be used in criminal investigations and related court proceedings. Through its platform, Flock assists law enforcement agencies in securely storing, retrieving, and managing evidentiary materials, including license plate reader data, video footage, and audio files in accordance with applicable legal processes and evidentiary standards. Flock also works collaboratively with its law enforcement partners to authenticate evidence, provide witnesses in criminal proceedings, and fulfill other legal needs that arise during prosecutions, hearings, and other judicial matters.

Consistent with its customer-focused mission, Flock recognizes that customers are entitled to confidence that their data will remain private and safeguarded in response to external requests. Flock’s standards terms and conditions and its approach to responding to legal process place the utmost importance on data privacy and security through the following protections:

• Data Ownership: Customers retain ownership and control of all data generated through their use of the Flock platform.
• Re-Direction of Legal Process: Flock considers the customer — not Flock — to be the proper recipient of any subpoena, court order, warrant, or other legal process seeking that data. Rather than disclose data or respond on behalf of our customers, Flock will re-direct any legal process to the affected customer.
• Non-Disclosure Policy: Flock does not disclose customer data in response to legal process unless required by law.
• Legal Challenges: We take action whenever it’s necessary to protect customer data. Flock will challenge and object to demands for customer data, including through formal legal proceedings when needed. Flock will assert all available protections under federal and state law to safeguard customer data from improper disclosure.
• Customer Notification: In strict adherence to Flock’s Terms & Conditions and our Privacy Policy, we will provide notice to our customers whenever requests are received for their data, unless legally prohibited from doing so.
• Strict Data Retention Standards: All LPR data is permanently deleted and irretrievable after the customer’s retention period expires. Flock cannot restore LPR data in response to legal requests once it has been deleted.

To further protect sensitive information, Flock uses Kodex for securely receiving, tracking, processing, and responding to legal requests from government, law enforcement, and private customers. Flock’s Evidence Division, a trained team within our legal department, reviews and evaluates all requests as they are received. Flock then provides detailed and adequate responses to the requesting agency through Kodex.

Evidence Certification Requests

Flock’s Standard Retention Period: Flock’s standard retention period is thirty (30) calendar days from the date of capture. This standard retention period applies to all customer data, unless otherwise specified in the individual customer’s agreement.

License Plate Reader (LPR) Image Certification within Retention Period: For requests that are still within the retention period, customers can obtain a certification automatically through downloading either the LPR Image or the associated Investigative Summary within the Flock user interface. Both the images and summaries contain certifications that constitute self-authenticating Flock evidence for use at trial. For more information on downloading and exporting an Image or Investigative Summary, please see our Help Article.

LPR Image Certification Request Outside Retention Period: For images outside of the retention period that have already been downloaded and stored without self certification, please use Flock’s Evidence Validator to upload your original images for validation and to obtain court-ready authentication. For more information on how to use the Evidence Validator, please see our Help Article.

NOTE: The Evidence Validator only applies to files (PDFs, images) downloaded after July 1, 2025. If you are unable to use the Evidence Validator, please submit a request for certification through Kodex.

Video, Audio, or Drone Evidence: For certification requests other than License Plate Readers (such as video, audio, or drone), customers should submit a request through Kodex by selecting “Evidence Certification" in the Legal Process field.

Testifying Requests

Flock Safety works with its law enforcement customers to support criminal court proceedings by assisting with evidentiary authentication and records testimony when appropriate. In matters where Flock-generated evidence is introduced in court, Flock may make knowledgeable representatives available to testify regarding the operation of Flock systems and the authenticity of records produced from the platform. By supporting customers throughout the legal process, Flock helps agencies efficiently present reliable digital evidence while minimizing administrative burdens on investigators and prosecutors.

For customers who seek a Flock witness, please submit a subpoena submitted through Kodex.

Once the subpoena is properly served and received, Flock will supply a witness in those instances where an evidence or business records certification is insufficient. Unless otherwise specified, the requestor is responsible for covering all applicable travel expenses and lodging.

Flock reserves the right to resist subpoenas for witness testimony that are served fewer than fourteen (14) calendar days from the scheduled date of appearance.

Service of Process

When serving legal process on Flock, please follow these instructions:

1. Customers: Flock accepts service via Kodex from customers seeking access to their own data and information.

2. Non-Customers: All legal requests that are not made by a Flock customer must be properly served via Flock’s registered agent in accordance with applicable law. Flock requires submission of the complete legal process, including all attachments to be submitted via uneditable PDF format. Flock will notify customers when any of their data is sought in response to legal process unless prohibited by law.

Flock reserves the right to disregard requests for information that are not accompanied by properly served legal process. Flock carefully reviews all submissions to ensure that there is a valid legal basis for each request. If any request is considered to be unclear, inappropriate or over-broad or without legal basis, Flock reserves the right to challenge or reject such request.

Public Records Requests

If you are a Flock customer looking to preserve or request bulk data (such as audit logs for your organization for a period greater than one year), any requests should be submitted through Kodex. If you need directions for submitting requests, please see Flock’s Customer Guidance for Preserving and Requesting Flock Data for Public Records Requests.

In your Kodex request, please enter any details we may know about your request, including if you need the data by a specific date. While data preservation is often initiated within hours (or less) of receiving a request in Kodex, our Evidence Policy asks for 14 calendar days to fulfill requests. If data is needed sooner, we are motivated to help customers to meet any FOIA/PRA deadlines they are facing.

Not a Flock customer?

Flock is a public safety technology company that provides services on behalf of our customers, including law enforcement agencies, businesses, schools, religious institutions, and private neighborhoods. Flock customers own all data they generate through use of Flock’s services and control how it is used and shared. Accordingly, any customer data you seek is subject to protection under the Stored Communications Act and thus subject to associated statutory restrictions on those service providers.

Because third-party customers own and control the data you seek, not Flock, any data requests must be directed to those customers. Flock is not the proper recipient of your request. This is consistent with industry practice and longstanding guidance from the Department of Justice, which advises seeking enterprise customer data directly from the entity that controls it rather than from a third-party service provider.

Accordingly, Flock encourages that you contact the customer regarding your request. Please also note that after the retention period expires, all customer data collected by Flock is hard deleted and will no longer be accessible or retrievable.

Support

Response Time

Flock typically responds to valid requests within (14) calendar days. However, certain requests may take longer than the standard response time depending on the complexity and scope of the request.

If you require an expedited response, the required response deadline should be stated clearly in both the submission documentation and the formal request itself.

Emergency / Exigent Request

Emergency or exigent requests can be made through Kodex by selecting “Emergency” in the Legal Process field. Flock will only process emergency requests that provide the following information:

1. Grounds to believe that there exists a risk of danger of death or serious physical injury that Flock may have information necessary to prevent;

2. The nature of the emergency that requires disclosure, without delay, of the information requested;

3. How the information sought will help avert the threatened death or serious physical injury and why normal disclosure processes would be insufficient or untimely in light of the deadline requested;

4. The name and contact information of the individual law enforcement or authorized government agent serving the request;

5. The categories of records sought, stated with particularity; AND

6. The specific time period for which the records are requested.

Reimbursement

Flock reserves the right to seek reimbursement for costs in responding to unusual or burdensome requests. Flock will not seek reimbursement for costs associated with responding to emergency requests or requests relating to child endangerment.

FAQs

These guidelines are regularly reviewed by Flock and are subject to change at our discretion. For further information and answers to some frequently asked questions regarding evidence, please read below.

What does Flock Safety do?

Flock Safety is a public safety technology platform that builds hardware and software to collect objective evidence, surface investigative insights, and solve crime to create safer communities. Our products include License Plate Reading (LPR) cameras, video cameras, gunshot detection sensors, real-time crime center software, and Drones As First Responder (DFR) systems.

How does the Flock LPR camera work?

The camera uses motion detection to detect when a vehicle moves past it. It captures an image of that vehicle, alerts local law enforcement if the vehicle plate is on a state or national crime database, and transmits and stores the images in the cloud, fully encrypted, for a default period of 7 days.

Is the Flock LPR only for law enforcement?

The Flock LPR camera can be used by law enforcement as well as private neighborhoods or businesses. Customers may choose to share their data with law enforcement so that regardless of the owner/purchaser, law enforcement is still able to help solve crime.

How do we know the Flock LPR was working during a certain date and time?

Flock’s cloud software maintains a suite of “health checks” that run regularly. Flock develops this software in house. These health checks validate essential functionality and let Flock know when a device is operating abnormally.

How do we know timestamps on the device are accurate?

The Flock LPR device syncs its clock with the LTE network. If the device goes offline, it would resync the clock once it is back online.

How does Flock’s LPR software work?

Flock builds our in-house, proprietary machine learning technology which is capable of identifying types of vehicles, license plate information, and various other objective vehicle characteristics (e.g. roof rack). Flock maintains a high standard of quality check and validates every machine learning model with a large, diverse dataset of vehicles, ensuring that our accuracy is inline with industry standards.

How does data security work?

The license plate data is securely captured, transmitted to the cloud, stored for thirty (30) days, and then permanently deleted. On the camera itself, data is only stored temporarily until it is uploaded to the cloud, at which point it is removed automatically from the local camera. Data transmitted from the Flock camera to Flock’s cloud environment is encrypted in transit using TLS 1.2 or higher through a secure connection to Flock servers. Once in the cloud, all data, including footage and metadata, is securely stored with AES-256 encryption at rest with our cloud provider, Amazon Web Services. This means the data is encrypted throughout its lifecycle, from the time it is captured on the Flock camera, while it is transmitted to the cloud, and while it is stored in the cloud. Flock defaults to permanently deleting all data after thirty (30) days on a rolling basis unless otherwise required by law or the individual customer agreement. Data collected, stored, transmitted, and processed on devices and within Flock Safety’s cloud platforms is secured in accordance with Flock’s adoption of policies, procedures, and security controls necessary to identify, protect, detect, respond, and recover from cybersecurity events. For more information, please visit our website at the Flock Safety Trust Center.

What is Flock’s Retention Period/ How is the Retention Period decided?

Flock Safety’s default data retention period for data collected by license plate readers is thirty (30) days, after which data is hard deleted from the cloud. We believe thirty days provides strong protection for community privacy while still enabling the provision of sufficient evidence in the majority of cases. There are also administrative benefits for our customers by retaining and storing less data.

Flock will respect existing LPR retention laws and regulations that differ from 7 days. If a customer wishes to impose a longer retention period that is not already required by its jurisdiction’s laws, Flock will offer an extended retention for up to one year, but shall require the agency to first obtain approval from an elected official and/or a governing body. This allows the decision to be made transparently and with the support of the community.

The information contained within these guidelines is for the purposes of providing information to government agencies, law enforcement agencies and private customers regarding the legal process that Flock requires in order to disclose information. These guidelines are not intended to provide legal advice or as a substitute for witness testimony and nothing within these guidelines is meant to create any enforceable rights against Flock.