"Official Police Business Only" Now Covers City Planning

With another massive security incident published, Flock announces another feature to hamper transparency and prevent oversight. Apparently, all we need to do to fulfill the company’s stated mission to eliminate crime is hide the evidence.

Flock has never been hacked. Ever. … It’s tough every day waking up to stories online that are misleading and only represent one side of the story,

Flock cameras are open for live viewing and footage downloading to anyone on the Internet. No hacking required, just type in the address; it’s one way to protect your “never been hacked” track record. Benn Jordan brings the receipts in his video titled "This Flock Camera Leak is like Netflix For Stalkers".

But, this post is about a smaller, but still significant, post on Flock’s own blog. It’s a screenshot included in Josh Thomas’ December 10, 2025, post titled “Offense Type Dropdown: A Simpler, More Accurate Audit.”

In the blog post, Flock announces “a new, required step in every ALPR Search: Offense Type Dropdowns,” noting “The existing Search Reason field will still be available as an optional place to add extra detail.”

With this modification, Flock has materially altered its service. Cities and the public were told “we require users to enter a reason for every search.” Even where contracts which were signed following a democratic process, which excludes quite a few contracts, Flock has thrown that democratic authorization in the dumpster and substituted its own judgment.

Of course, the “reason” field was always compliance theater, and there is no evidence to suggest that agencies regularly audit any search logs. Flock implemented warning popups to suggest users select another reason when they enter terms like “immigration,” but it’s safer to simply not to even offer the option.

The screenshot, however, shows a more direct violation of Flock’s prior terms of service. Although the terms vary based on the contract (at least, for now), the older contracts prohibit use of the system other than for a “permitted purpose”:

The purpose for usage of the equipment, the Services and support, and the Flock IP is solely to facilitate gathering evidence that could be used in a criminal investigation by the appropriate government agency and not for tracking activities that the system is not designed to capture (“Permitted Purpose”)

This language also appears to be what Flock CEO Garrett Langley references in a December 22 interview with Politico, when responding to the question “Do you worry about flock being used for dragnet surveillance? For example, police identifying all the cars in the vicinity of a protest?”

Langley falsely claims:

Our contracts mandate that our products can only be used for criminal investigations. What you’re describing, would be based on an issue that you might not trust your local police department. […] The police chief reports to a city council, a mayor, a city manager. My expectation is that if a police department was violating the Constitution or local legislation, that those individuals would be held accountable.

Aside from misplaced optimism about accountability without transparency, the language he references no longer appears in newer contracts. Flock has cut the “investigative purpose” language entirely:

“Permitted Purpose” means for legitimate public safety and/or business purpose, including but not limited to the awareness, prevention, and prosecution of crime; investigations; and prevention of commercial harm, to the extent permitted by law.

“Investigations” by itself, without further context, is now a permitted purpose.

It’s a loophole so big you could park a truck in it, but even then, it’s difficult to reconcile “City Planning/Traffic Analysis,” with public safety, business, or investigation.

Yet, it is an option in Flock’s “investigative purpose” dropdown.

Flock is quick to claim “local decisions” whenever misuse is documented, or to offload its own responsibility onto public oversight that its own products actively prevents.

This latest feature is yet more evidence that the company is not passive: it actively facilitates improper use of its systems, for purposes no city council approved.

This is the same company now asking cities to sign contracts it can rewrite at will.

The dropdown is the tell: Flock decides what the system is for. Your city council just pays for it.