Flock Safety CEO Garrett Langley: 'All This Camera Hate is New... It'll Blow Over'

Our Take

When the man running the largest license plate surveillance network in the country goes on camera to tell critics their concerns are just a phase that'll "blow over," that's not confidence — that's a company feeling the heat. Garrett Langley can call it "camera hate" all he wants, but what's actually new is the scale of public awareness about how many Flock cameras are quietly logging every car that passes, who's accessing that data, and how little oversight exists once it's collected. Credit to Hard Lens Media for getting Langley on record and pressing him on it.

The dismissive framing matters because it's a preview of the industry playbook: treat growing scrutiny as noise rather than legitimate pushback from residents, local officials, and civil liberties advocates who are actually reading the contracts and asking where the footage goes. Mass ALPR surveillance didn't become controversial because of a PR problem — it became controversial because people found out what these systems can do and who can misuse them. That's not a trend that blows over; it's a trend that grows as more communities learn what's parked on their street corners.

If you want to see whether Flock has a presence near you, check our camera map, and if you'd rather not wait for the hype to fade on its own, our take-action page has concrete steps for pushing back at the local level.