Flock isn’t just at the center of a national debate, it came to the center of my life when the system tracked me for days and four cops ambushed my wife and me. I was one of the countless mistakes made each month between police and new technology, and at a time when discussions are raging across America regarding privacy, warrantless tracking, and the Fourth Amendment.
Flock Safety Founder and CEO Garrett Langley sits down for an exclusive personal interview drivecast To discuss the growing public debate over public privacy, the Fourth Amendment, and where Flock sits. The executive was certain that he did not believe there was any legal issue today and that there would be no legal issue in the future.
Listen to the entire conversation, starting with Langley discussing the issue of tracking and people’s rights.
“People have three concerns or three questions about the company: privacy, constitutionality and accountability,” Langley told me.
Addressing the Fourth Amendment and the legal issue, Langley said, “You mentioned constitutional. That’s pretty cut and dry. You and I can’t pick and choose what’s a constitutional violation and what’s not. We have judges, we have elected officials, there’s a process for it. We follow the law, we follow the Constitution. So far, in our belief and for what will be a long time, the courts have held that this is not a warrantless search; it’s a legitimate product because it’s a fourth amendment.” Is related to amendment. So I don’t see any change there.
Regarding privacy and data retention, Langley said, “On privacy, however, there are also some real questions that we ask. Here’s a good example: Before we started Flock, this type of ALPR data was stored in perpetuity. It was resold by repo trucks to insurance providers for commercial purposes. That was very bad in my opinion. We were one of the first companies to say there was going to be a 30-day default retention, and we “We’re not going to sell the data.”
Langley brought data into the privacy discussion, saying, “We solved just over a million crimes last year on the Flock system in partnership with local law enforcement. If I told you that if we reduced the 30-day hold to 14 days, 30% fewer crimes would be solved – so approximately 300,000 more victims without justice – would you make that compromise?” drive No verification of these figures or their source was provided.
Who should decide whether your community is using automated license plate reader technology? According to Langley, “You and I shouldn’t have to choose. In fact, the Mayor of Plymouth (the city I live in and we’ve used countless examples during the discussion) and the City Council should make this decision, because it’s a fair compromise. We choose people we believe match our values to create very difficult, non-black-and-white questions.”
Langley said how cities use and implement Flock is up to them. But according to Flock’s CEO, these decisions will have a huge impact on public safety and the effectiveness of the system. “You can go down with something like Flock and say, ‘We like the idea of Flock, but we want to just focus on amber alerts and silver alerts.’ So there is zero retention of data, only alerts. I’d say, ‘Okay, you’ll get about 50% of the value of the system, but if that’s what you want in a Plymouth, then great, we’d love to help you, but you’ll still be protected.’ Now, you’ll be less safe than San Francisco, but it’s an option,” Langley said.
Langley continued, “For us, we don’t want to push our opinions as individual citizens. I live in Atlanta, you live in Plymouth. We just want more elected officials to do their research, do their homework, form an opinion, engage the community, and then set a standard that makes sense to them.”
What this means for each city is unclear as there is ongoing debate and argument on the topic of swarm and automated license plate reader technology across the US. But Langley wants Flock to expand from today’s 7,000 cities to every one of America’s 17,000 cities in the future.
Got any tips? Drop us a line at tips@thedrive.com
