Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley is asking the country to meet him in the middle. As backlash against his surveillance company grows, Langley told Fox News that Americans need to find a “compromise” between privacy and safety, according to TechCrunch AI. “When people talk about just one of these, privacy or safety, they’re prioritizing the wrong thing, and what we have to prioritize as a country is compromise,” he said.
That framing is Langley’s answer to a fast-building public outcry. Flock makes surveillance cameras, drones, and license plate recognition tech used by police departments across the country. The worry is simple: powerful tracking tools in the wrong hands get abused.
Why the heat is rising
The concerns aren’t theoretical. TechCrunch AI reports that The Washington Post identified 46 cases where police officers were accused of using Flock technology for unauthorized purposes, including stalking their wives, girlfriends, or exes.
Langley has struck an apologetic tone in response. After hearing an interview with one alleged victim, he told CBS News, “I apologize. It kills me that she went through that.” But he also drew a firm line: “I don’t think that Flock created police abuse. I think we’re the first company to ever shine a light on it and build the tools to find it.”
What stands out here is how fast this became a bipartisan target. That almost never happens in surveillance debates.
- On the left: Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed slammed “this mass proliferation of Flock cameras, any and everywhere, watching your every move.” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders posted, “STOP AI MASS SURVEILLANCE. STOP FLOCK.”
- On the right: Three House Republicans introduced a bill to bar the federal government from buying automated surveillance systems using facial recognition, biometric IDs, or license plate recognition, and it names “a Flock Safety camera” specifically.
When Bernie Sanders and House Republicans land on the same side, a company has a real problem. This mirrors the data center backlash, another tech issue that’s found critics across the political spectrum.
What Flock has actually changed
The company hasn’t stood still. Per TechCrunch AI, Flock has cut its default data retention window from 30 days to seven and now requires a case code before anyone accesses data.
Here’s the catch. Both changes can be overridden. Police can hold onto data longer through a setting called Evidence Mode, which leaves the door open to the exact behavior critics are worried about.
The ACLU isn’t sold yet. “While Flock has not shortened the default retention period to the ACLU’s recommended 48 hours, its proposal may be a step in the right direction,” the group said. “Whether this is a real change or just another Flock PR move, however, will depend on how its ‘Evidence Mode’ operates.”
That’s the whole fight in one sentence. A default of seven days means little if the override is easy and the logging is weak.
Why this matters for the AI industry
Flock is a case study in what happens when AI-powered surveillance scales faster than the rules around it. Langley basically admits as much. “Today, it is too often that in Flock and in other technologies, there’s no regulation. There’s no accountability, and we think that’s wrong,” he told Fox News. He’s pushing state regulators to make illegal use of Flock data a criminal offense.
It’s a notable position: a surveillance CEO asking to be regulated. Read cynically, tighter laws punishing individual bad actors shift blame away from the vendor building the tools. Read charitably, clear rules give the whole sector a floor to stand on.
Either way, this is where AI accountability gets real. Not in a model card or a policy blog, but in whether a cop can quietly flip a setting to track an ex.
What to watch next
Expect the pressure to keep climbing. The federal bill, state-level criminal statutes, and how Evidence Mode actually works in practice will decide whether Flock’s changes hold up. Langley will face these questions directly on-stage at TechCrunch Disrupt in October, and his answers there will tell us how much of this is reform and how much is messaging.
Full details are available in the original TechCrunch AI report.