Flock Safety's CEO Defends Surveillance Cameras — and Contradicts His Own Website — at TechCrunch Disrupt

The founder and chief executive of Flock Safety, the Atlanta-based company whose automated license-plate-reader cameras now cover more than 100,000 locations across the United States, defended the technology on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco on Tuesday even as protesters gathered outside carrying signs reading "Flock = ICE" — and was caught in a contradiction between his own description of the company's gunshot-detection microphones and what Flock's website says those devices actually do.

What happened

In a public interview at the conference, Garrett Langley argued that the societal benefits of Flock's camera network outweigh its risks, comparing the spread of surveillance technology to the arrival of self-driving cars and saying a lower-crime society requires people to accept some loss of privacy. Pressed on the company's Raven gunshot-detection microphones, Langley told the audience the devices detect "just gunshots." But Flock's own product page says the same audio system can also pinpoint street takeovers, fireworks, sideshows and "severe crashes," and that its detection library is "continually expanding." A company spokesperson, Paris Lewbel, later said the technology is used "primarily" for gunfire but acknowledged it can flag the other sounds as well, while maintaining it does not monitor conversations.

Langley was also asked why Flock has never terminated a police department's contract over documented misuse of its nationwide plate database, despite reporting that has tied dozens of officers to arrests, firings or forced resignations for using the system to track people such as ex-partners. He said the company would act on "clear, widespread abuse" and that knowingly unlawful use "would" lead to termination "immediately," but acknowledged Flock has internally debated harder cases — what to do, he said, if only two officers out of fifty misused the system — and that pulling a community's access entirely remains "not off the table" rather than something the company has actually done.

The numbers

Flock's camera network spans more than 100,000 locations nationwide, and the company was valued at roughly $7.5 billion after a $275 million funding round in early 2025. It is in the middle of a round of buyouts affecting about 18 percent of its staff, roughly 270 employees, in a program the company has described as voluntary rather than a layoff. A tracking effort by Newsweek counted at least 149 cities and counties that had canceled, rejected or deactivated Flock deployments as of late August, a figure that has continued to climb.

How we got here

The backlash accelerated after a Washington Post investigation published in August found dozens of officers across the country had misused plate-reader access, in one case a police chief who ran roughly 600 searches on an ex-girlfriend and her daughter over a year before being arrested on stalking charges; he died by suicide before trial. Flock responded with a policy update in August cutting its recommended default data-retention window from 30 days to seven, adding a new "Evidence Mode" for active cases, and committing to mandatory multi-factor authentication and audit tools it detailed in its newsroom by the end of the year. The American Civil Liberties Union called the changes largely "hollow" in a statement, noting that even a seven-day default retention period far exceeds the 48-hour maximum the organization has recommended, and warning that "Evidence Mode" could become a backdoor to indefinite storage if applied loosely.

The company does not have a direct contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but federal agents have reportedly accessed Flock data through local police partners in some jurisdictions, a pattern the protesters outside Disrupt were pointing to with their signs. Separately, a federal judge in Oklahoma ruled this month that a warrantless search of Flock's plate history amounted to "a type of indiscriminate mass surveillance," suppressing evidence in a drug case; the ruling is not binding precedent and Flock has said it expects an appeal.

Who's affected

The dispute sits at the intersection of local law enforcement, civil-liberties advocates and the communities whose movements the cameras record. Police departments that rely on the network for investigations — Langley cited a case in which a stolen car with a baby inside was recovered quickly with Flock's help — argue the tool solves real crimes. Privacy advocates counter that the same database that finds a stolen car can also be turned against ordinary people by officers who misuse their access, and that Flock's reluctance to cut off abusive customers leaves that risk largely unaddressed. Some of Flock's own corporate partners have already pulled back: Amazon's Ring canceled a planned data-sharing integration with Flock earlier this year, and the Los Angeles Police Department let its three-year contract with the company lapse over data-ownership concerns, with renegotiation still unresolved.

Reaction

"It's just gunshots," Langley told the Disrupt audience when asked what the Raven microphones detect — a description at odds with his own company's product page.

Asked about a Semafor report that Flock is in preliminary talks with advisers about a possible sale, with Axon and Motorola Solutions named as potential acquirers, Langley said the company has "no desire to sell." On the broader criticism facing the company, he said Flock "is far from perfect" but argued it is being held to an impossible standard of perfection for a new technology.

What happens next

Flock's buyout program is set to conclude at the end of October, and the company's audit-assistance tool is due to become mandatory for all law-enforcement customers by the end of the year. The Oklahoma suppression ruling is expected to be appealed, and city-by-city votes on whether to keep, drop or renegotiate Flock contracts are continuing to play out across the country as the 149-and-counting list of cancellations grows.