Langley said that, just six months ago, he asked in a meeting of the company’s board why there seemed to be a growing public focus on Flock.
This was around the time that Amazon’s Ring, a doorbell camera firm, cancelled a partnership with Flock after an outcry over a Super Bowl advert which sparked concern about unwanted surveillance.
“Historically, my point of view as a chief executive of a private company was, I don’t know if I should be making these decisions. I don’t know if it’s my job to say how long data should be retained,” Langley said.
He added that he has come to agree with groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the Electronic Frontier Foundation that police should need an active case number to search Flock’s data.
“They’re right. I think it should be required.”
He added: “Our employees and communities have said loud and clear, they expect companies like Flock to have a stronger point of view as the expert. I resisted that because I didn’t want to have that responsibility.”
Cooper Quintin of the EFF described Flock’s new changes as “piecemeal, voluntary, and reversible” updates that “fall short” of meaningful protection of peoples’ privacy.
“Simple safety ‘feature updates’ can and will be circumvented”, Quintin said. “Invasive searches like [automated license plate reader] database queries must require a judicial warrant.”
Langley says he has now accepted responsibility for more control over the uses of Flock. At the same time as he is strengthening Flock’s safeguards, he is pitching his company’s products as crucial to combatting crime and improving policing in the US.
Cities that don’t use Flock are effectively choosing “to be less safe”, he claimed.
Nevertheless, he does not deny that Flock has been misused by members of law enforcement.
“We’re only as good as the data coming in,” Langley said. “When you see these cases of wrongful arrest, the data was bad and the officer failed to follow the rules. But it’s easier to pick a villain that’s a company like us.”
