Flock’s founder and CEO Garrett Langley doesn’t assume the dangers of introducing surveillance expertise at scale outweigh the rewards.
“If we wish to dwell in a society the place, in the event you commit against the law, you’ve gotten the next likelihood of being held accountable, we shouldn’t pause progress,” Langley mentioned, talking on stage throughout a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco on Wednesday.
In the course of the interview, the controversial founding father of the surveillance maker of license plate cameras and different recording units deflected onerous questions in regards to the criticism Flock now faces — which has since led to cancelled contracts and even layoffs. As an alternative, Langley tended to reply to questions with anecdotes from conversations with police chiefs and metropolis leaders throughout america, and tales of the supposed quite a few crimes Flock has solved, reasonably than supply tangible options to folks’s issues.
In doing so, Langley positioned Flock as an advance in expertise that was considerably inevitable. He confused that if folks needed to dwell in a greater society — that’s, one with lowered crime — they must supply up their privateness in return.
An analogous argument in regards to the trade-offs and rewards may very well be made for AI, which is marketed to the general public as vastly enhancing our lives, automating tedious duties, and making issues extra handy. The flip facet is the price of sharing all the things about ourselves with the makers of the AI brokers themselves — and the opportunity of the destruction of humanity, in line with some.
It’s no shock that the AI backlash shares some overlap with Flock. Very like AI, Flock is a expertise that some really feel has been compelled upon the general public with out their consent.
For Langley, that is simply the character of progress, he defined.
“Know-how, at its core, in its definition, is simply doing issues higher. It’s not doing issues good,” he mentioned. “Driverless vehicles, I feel, is a good analogy. Driverless vehicles, I feel, are definitively safer than human drivers. And when there’s one accident, I don’t assume the reply is to close down driverless vehicles. The reply is to say, ‘Hey, let’s speak about how we stop extra accidents sooner or later’.”
However driverless automotive makers don’t shrug their shoulders at crashes; the businesses pause their fleets and apply fixes. Flock, in the meantime, appears to wrestle as an organization with understanding when it’s the corporate’s duty to intervene. From Langley’s solutions, it’s clear that the ethics round how Flock ought to be used is a call he would a lot reasonably depart as much as others.
“We don’t wish to inform metropolis leaders do their job,” he famous. “We are going to present suggestions, we’ll present defaults, however we’re going to attenuate the variety of mandated options, features, and insurance policies,” he mentioned.
CEO: ‘Flock is much from good’
Among the many many rebuttals to his critics that Langley raised through the interview was the concept misinformation about Flock had led to a few of its clients’ cancellations. As an illustration, he referenced a time when a buyer ended their contract as a result of they believed the units carried out facial recognition. Whereas Flock cameras would not have facial recognition, they do have the ability to detect and track people.
Langley additionally spent a good period of time admonishing those that assume his expertise, or any expertise, ought to be good, attributing the quote to some unnamed neighborhood chief.
“He was describing that, too typically as a society we decide expertise not on the way it compares to the previous, however the way it compares to good. And Flock is much from good; I’m removed from good — I’ve made loads of errors,” Langley mentioned.
One other space of pushback was in positioning Flock as a simpler type of policing, and one which allowed police departments to do extra with lowered workers.
“In the event you take a look at the place policing has gone during the last decade, however significantly post-COVID, regulation enforcement employment is declining quickly. I take into consideration a spot like San Francisco, and there’s lots of of open positions. They are going to most likely by no means be crammed,” he mentioned, positioning Flock because the tech that will fill in these gaps.
However pressed about abuse and the invasiveness of his firm’s surveillance expertise, Langley had no substantive solutions.
“I feel if the concept is to curb abuse, I feel there’s a means to try this that doesn’t disrupt the authorized system, that doesn’t disrupt the efficacy and stream of a police division,” Langley mentioned, with out spelling out what these concepts had been.
For Langley, these appear to be issues of secondary significance, as a result of his perception in Flock as a public good is so robust.
“I feel one of many unlucky penalties of constructing a consequential firm is that is the worth you pay, and I feel it’s price it as a result of there’s thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of people that have a greater life immediately as a result of [of] Flock,” he mentioned. “And clearly we’ve made our justifiable share of errors, and there’s some of us who disagree with what we do, however it’s price it as a result of at some point they could be a sufferer,” Langley added.
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