Flock Will Implement Mandatory Search Monitoring Following Reports of Police Abuse
Flock, an American company that develops surveillance technology for law enforcement agencies, will implement mandatory search monitoring tools in its systems in the coming weeks. The decision was made following reports of incidents in which police officers allegedly used the company’s data to stalk former partners and other individuals, according to The Verge.
Flock will make the Audit Assistance feature mandatory; this feature detects unusual search activity and immediately blocks the suspicious user until an administrator reviews their actions. To initiate a search, all users will also be required to enter a case code. An administrator will be able to waive this requirement in an emergency, such as when searching for a missing child, but such cases will automatically be flagged for review.
Flock CEO Garrett Langley acknowledged that the company made a mistake by leaving these safeguards optional. According to him, since April, when Audit Assistance became available as a voluntary option, only one-third of institutions using Flock’s systems have enabled it. The company claims that instances of misuse were detected more frequently in institutions that activated the feature.
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Flock will also reduce the standard data retention period for data from devices—including automatic license plate readers—from 30 days to seven days. Law enforcement agencies will still be able to extend this period or use “Evidence Mode,” which will retain searches associated with a specific case number.
Local authorities that share Flock data with other agencies will be able to set more detailed access restrictions. For example, another police department could be allowed to search for a murder suspect but prohibited from using the data for immigration enforcement.
The changes came after a series of reports about alleged abuses of automatic license plate recognition systems. The Washington Post reported that the police chief of Braselton, Georgia, searched for his ex-girlfriend’s license plate more than 500 times over a seven-month period. California prosecutors also alleged that a former deputy sheriff in Riverside County allegedly used Flock data to stalk and harass his ex-girlfriend, including checking the license plates of men she was dating.
