Can we trust Flock Safety?
The short version: AJC's investigation asks whether Flock Safety's self-reported audit logs are real oversight or just a company grading its own homework.
Our Take
The question in the title answers itself: when the only transparency mechanism for a mass surveillance network is an audit log controlled by the vendor selling the cameras, that's not accountability — it's marketing. Flock loves to point to its search-reason requirements and audit trails as proof the system polices itself, but those logs only catch what officers choose to type into a text box. There's no independent verification, no real penalty for misuse beyond a city eventually getting embarrassed, and no limit on how many agencies can quietly pool their data through Flock's national lookup network.
Credit to the AJC and Fight for the Future for pushing past the company's talking points as more cities start asking hard questions about their contracts. That local skepticism is exactly how these systems get rolled back — city council by city council, as officials realize they bought a surveillance dragnet and got a press release about 'transparency' in return.
If you want to see how far this network already reaches near you, check our camera map, and if your town is still debating a Flock contract, our take-action page has the tools to push back before the cameras go up.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Atlanta Journal-Constitution, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.