Why Flock’s new surveillance safeguards still have loopholes
Flock is making automated audits of officer searches mandatory, recommending that agencies retain data for seven days instead of 30, and allowing departments to restrict outside searches by stated purpose.[7] The safeguards remain limited because agencies may override the retention recommendation, officers self-report search purposes, and Flock has not disclosed the auditing system’s accuracy or opened it to independent evaluation.[7]
More than 120,000 Flock cameras are installed across the US and can use AI to identify vehicles by attributes including plate number, make, model, and color, creating a network capable of tracing movement across communities.[12] At least 30 cities reportedly dropped Flock in the year before February 2026, while some jurisdictions are considering bans or switching providers.[7]
Key insights
- The mandatory audit system analyzes officer search activity and flags searches it considers suspicious to administrators.[7]
- Departments can permit searches for stated purposes such as kidnapping while excluding purposes such as immigration enforcement, but the control depends on officers accurately describing their searches.[7]
- Flock says contract cancellations are a small portion of the roughly 5,000 agencies that have contracted with the company.[7]
- Los Angeles is among the communities that canceled contracts or switched cameras off, and Ring ended a Flock partnership following online backlash.[12]