Flock Safety, a surveillance technology company, is making changes to its platform to address privacy concerns and abuses by law enforcement. The company, which provides automated license plate readers to thousands of law enforcement agencies, has faced criticism for the potential misuse of its technology.

Changes to the Platform

The changes include making audit tools mandatory for law enforcement customers, shortening the standard data retention window from 30 days to seven, and requiring law enforcement users to enter a code from their records management system tying each search to a specific case.

CEO Garrett Langley said the changes will drive accountability and give individual cities and departments control to use the system in a manner consistent with community values. However, critics of the company have reacted skeptically to the changes, saying they do not address the fundamental problem of police officers deciding who and when to search.

Criticism and Concerns

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) characterized the changes as ‘retreads’ of inadequate safety measures, while Robert Frommer, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, called them ‘window dressing’ from a company in ‘panic mode.’ The ACLU said the shortened evidence retention window could be a step in the right direction, but the other changes do not address the underlying issues.

More than 50 agencies or jurisdictions have canceled, suspended, or rejected a contract or deactivated their cameras since the beginning of the year, according to a tracker maintained by DeFlock, a grassroots group formed to track the use of license plate reader technology and push back against it.

Original reporting: KTBS 3 (Shreveport) — read the source article.