Flock CEO wants cameras in every US city
Garrett Langley says the Flock surveillance system is constitutional.
Garrett Langley. Image by Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images
- Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley wants to expand the company’s camera network from 7,000 to all 17,000 US cities.
- Langley says Flock’s license plate system does not violate the Fourth Amendment, despite privacy and accountability concerns.
- Critics warn Flock enables mass surveillance, and a Milwaukee officer allegedly used it to track a romantic partner.
- Langley says Flock keeps data for 30 days, does not sell it, and helped solve over one million crimes in 2025.
Key Takeaways by nexos.ai, reviewed by Cybernews staff.
Garrett Langley, the founder and CEO of Flock Safety, the company behind the controversial surveillance network, says it is “cut and dry” that the system doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment.
Langley sat for an exclusive interview with The Drive’s journalist Joel Feder, who has firsthand experience of Flock’s “human error.” The system falsely flagged and tracked him for several days, resulting in a police ambush.
Langley admitted that people have concerns about the company regarding privacy, constitutionality, and accountability.
However, he insisted it was “cut and dry” that the system doesn’t violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects Americans from unreasonable searches and seizures.
“So far, in our belief and what will be for a long time, the courts have deemed this is not a warrantless search; this is a valid product as it relates to the Fourth Amendment. So I don’t see any change there,” he is quoted as saying
Flock Safety’s Automated License Plate Recognition (ALPR) system is under increasing scrutiny over its powerful surveillance potential.
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Unlike the typical license plate readers, the Flock ALPR system records every car that comes into view and uses AI algorithms to analyze vehicle details, including bumper stickers, roof racks, and even scratches.
The system then matches the data with a searchable database used by law enforcement agencies and issues an alert.
Critics say the system enables mass surveillance without consent and poses a risk of misuse.
For instance, in 2025, the Milwaukee Police Department started an internal investigation into its officer secretly using Flock to learn the location of his romantic partner 124 and partner’s ex 55 times.
Langley defended the company in The Drive’s interview, arguing that before Flock, ALPR data was stored indefinitely and resold for commercial purposes.
“It was pretty nasty, in my opinion. We were one of the first companies to say there’s going to be a 30-day default retention, and we aren’t going to sell the data,” he said.
In addition, Langley said, the Flock system helped local law enforcement to solve over a million crimes in 2025. He claimed, without providing statistics, that reducing the 30-day retention to 14 days would result in 30% fewer crimes being solved.
The Flock ALPR system is currently used in 7,000 American cities, but Langley hopes to expand their network to all 17,000 cities in the US.