An inside look at Flock Safety's drone technology
The short version: CBS Detroit got a company-guided tour of Flock's drone program, but the real questions about autonomous flight and data retention went largely unanswered.
Our Take
CBS News Detroit sat down with Flock Safety for a look at its drone technology, and credit to the station for getting cameras inside a company that usually prefers to operate behind the scenes. But let's be clear about what this segment is: a guided tour, narrated by the vendor selling the product to your local police department. When the company doing the pitch is also the one framing the questions, viewers should treat the answers as marketing copy, not oversight.
Flock's drone push is the next frontier after its blanket of license plate reader cameras already logging millions of vehicle movements a day. Pairing drones with that existing ALPR network means police can potentially launch an aircraft the instant a plate hits a hotlist, extending surveillance from a fixed point on a pole to a roaming eye in the sky, often with little public debate about flight logs, retention windows, or who else gets access to that footage. These rollouts tend to move fast precisely because segments like this one generate goodwill before communities have had a real conversation about consent.
If your town is already blanketed with Flock cameras, drones are rarely far behind. Check our map to see what's been deployed near you, and if you want to push back before drones become the next default, our take-action page has the tools to get started.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of CBS Detroit, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.