Overview
- On Thursday Flock announced that all law enforcement customers must use its Audit Assistance tool, will be locked out for flagged searches, and must enter a case number for every search.
- The changes also cut the company’s default data retention from 30 days to seven days, add an Evidence Mode to preserve case‑linked records, and let jurisdictions limit outside‑agency searches by offense type.
- The reforms follow reporting and audits that identified roughly 46–50 instances of officer misuse, including cases where officers allegedly ran repeated searches on partners or family members.
- More than 50 local actions have paused or ended Flock contracts, cameras have been vandalized, and criminal probes and personnel reviews into misuse are still active.
- Civil liberties groups and legal experts say the company fixes are insufficient and call for warrants, independent audits, stronger laws, and enforceable penalties to stop warrantless mass location tracking.