Flock Safety's CEO went on the record this week with specific promises about privacy protections and abuse prevention, giving Stafford City Council members fresh information as they prepare to act on a pending license plate reader cost-sharing agreement.
Garrett Langley, the company's founder and CEO, told KPRC 2's sister station WDIV in Detroit in an interview published Tuesday, that Flock does not conduct facial recognition, does not sell or own the data its cameras collect, and does not cooperate with ICE. Flock does not own the data. Local agencies control who sees it and what crimes can be investigated with it, Langley said.
"We built a pattern recognition tool called audit assistance because we helped solve over a million crimes last year in Flock," Langley said. "We know what normal behavior looks like in a system. We also know what abnormal behavior looks like. And so we now flag that behavior for the administrator in real time. That individual can be locked out in real time."
The statements come as more than 70 cases of officers disciplined, fired or arrested for misusing Flock's system have been documented nationwide, according to InvestigateTV. Closer to home, the Harris County Sheriff's Office suspended access for three deputies under review, and a former Pasadena police sergeant surrendered his peace officer license after allegations he used Flock cameras to monitor a fellow officer.
What Stafford has done so far
Stafford City Council voted 4-3 on July 15 to direct the city attorney to confirm the East Fort Bend Development Authority's intentions to split costs on a one-year Flock camera agreement for the GRID area, according to council minutes. Mayor Ken Mathew and council members Alice Chen, William Bostic Jr. and Wen Guerra voted in favor. Mayor Pro Tem Tim Wood and council members Xavier Herrera and Virginia Rosas voted against.
At that July 15 meeting, Stafford Police Chief Richard Ramirez provided background on the city's previous Flock agreement, and resident Cliff Cowperthwait of 111 Squires Bend spoke against the item, raising data collection concerns. He was granted an extra minute to finish his remarks.
A license plate reader agreement appeared on the consent agenda at the council's Aug. 5 meeting, as we reported that week, though vote outcomes were not confirmed.
New safeguards announced
Five days before the WDIV interview, Langley published a blog post on Aug. 13 announcing mandatory changes for all law enforcement customers by the end of 2026: default data retention drops from 30 days to seven, officers must enter case codes for every search, the audit assistance tool becomes required rather than optional, and cities gain offense filtering that lets them block outside agencies from searching their data for certain crime types, including immigration enforcement.
CNN reported that about a third of Flock's agency customers had already turned on the audit tool voluntarily before the mandate.
Langley also called for stronger criminal penalties for officers who abuse the system, saying termination alone is not enough. He said stalking an ex-partner or looking up a family member's records through the system should be a criminal offense.
