As Flock battles public scrutiny, other police surveillance companies see an opening

Traffic flows past an Axon brand automated license plate reader (ALPR) camera in Silver Spring, Md. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images hide caption

Dozens of people crammed into a conference room for a gathering at a public library in Washington, D.C.

The topic? Automated license plate readers, such as the ones sold by Flock Safety, a company facing major backlash from residents in communities across the country who find themselves deeply unsettled by privacy concerns.

On Monday, members of DeFlock DC, a grassroots group dedicated to ending all contracts between the Metropolitan Police Department and Flock, explained to the group how these controversial cameras work and where they are located throughout the city.

But as Loreal Hawk, a member of DeFlock DC, told the group gathered, automated license plate readers are neither new nor unique to Flock. Competitors such as Axon, Motorola Solutions and Verkada, offer similar products to law enforcement agencies, and have for years.

"We need to cancel these contracts," Hawk said.

Flock has been the target of much of the public's ire, but its rivals have largely avoided it. Now, some of those competitors are trying to cash in on Flock's fall from grace.

More than 130,000 automated license-plate readers, or ALPR's, can be found in cities and towns across the country, according to the crowdsourced database DeFlock.org . The cameras take images of the backs of cars. Law enforcement has increasingly turned to this tool to help solve crime.

"The Flock ALPR technology has captured the public's attention" and spurred a realization that "maybe we don't want to be surveilled all the time," said Andrew Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University.

But now, he said, Flock is the one that has "the target put on its back."

Why is Flock facing so much heat?

Flock CEO Garrett Langley regularly posts on social media extolling the benefits of his company's tech , often noting that communities are safer because of it. Flock was credited with helping to track the suspect in last year's Brown University shooting, which killed two students and injured nine other people.

"On a very personal level, I go to bed every night very proud of the impact we have in the world," Langley told NPR.

Many automated license plate readers, including Flock's, use AI to capture information such as a vehicle's make, model and color. Police can search Flock's shared national database of these images — including vehicles outside of their own jurisdiction.

That national database is a core point of contention for Flock opponents.

"People got really mad at Flock because they realized that it was a window into a whole network of surveillance," said Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital privacy advocacy group. He strongly opposes the technology broadly, not just Flock's version of it.

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With this network "suddenly your cameras are being used to enforce things that you don't agree with or that are not illegal in your town," he said.

In Texas, for instance, deputies used Flock data to help investigate a woman suspected of traveling to have an abortion.

Hits against Flock keep coming. Police officers have been found to use this technology to stalk women. And while Flock allows customers to control the information they share on its network, there are some cases where information was unknowingly shared more widely, including with federal immigration agencies.

In response, the company last week announced a host of changes , including reducing its data retention period and emphasizing safeguards around local data searches.

The ACLU said the changes were largely unsatisfying.

Competitors step in

License plate readers are only one piece of a growing police surveillance industry.

Many law enforcement agencies use integrated tools such as facial recognition , gunshot detectors , predictive policing , drones and real-time crime centers that pull all this information into one central hub used by investigators.

Ferguson, who is also the author of Your Data Will Be Used Against You: Policing in the Age of Self-Surveillance , says in his view, those integrated systems raise far more red flags for privacy than license plate readers alone. Yet, they've drawn almost no large-scale public protest.

Axon is widely known for its police body cameras, but the company's CEO says more law enforcement agencies are buying their automated license plate readers, as a growing number of cities cancel their contracts with Flock amid widespread public backlash. PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Guariglia believes Flock is at the center of the license plate reader firestorm, in part, because of its cameras' visibility.

"Once you know what they look like, you become aware of how ubiquitous they are," he said.

Dozens of communities have turned against Flock amid widespread public backlash. About 100 cities have deactivated cameras, rejected deals or cancelled contracts, according to DeFlock's database . Some, such as Denver and Longmont, Colo. , signed contracts with Flock competitors this year, including Axon, a trend reported by 404 Media .

Axon, a multibillion dollar company that provides tech and weapons to law enforcement and the military, says it's positioned to step in amid the "deFlock movement." During Axon's most recent earnings call, CEO Rick Smith told investors that law enforcement agencies are making the switch.

"We're seeing a significant number of agencies want to come over to Axon and convert from existing license plate readers to us." He credited the company's "controls and privacy work."

Axon declined to say how much business the company has gained from cancelled Flock contracts.

When asked how Flock is responding to other providers swooping in on their departing business, Langley said he is unconcerned.

"We will have added seven times the number of new customers that have left us this year," he said.

Langley said he was especially surprised about Denver's move to sign a one-year deal with Axon, after residents voiced concerns over data sharing for immigration enforcement.

"I guess in some ways I scratch my head because that company works with ICE," he said. "They lack the accountability and transparency we have, and so I don't know why they made that choice."

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Axon holds several multimillion dollar contracts with the Department of Homeland Security for its products, including body cameras and Tasers.

"For more than 30 years, we've built products to protect life," Axon spokesperson Kate MacKinnon said in an email to NPR. "As new technologies emerge, we know that our customers require solutions that protect data and privacy."

But privacy experts warn the switch to other police surveillance technologies isn't a fix.

"You're just replacing one color of camera for another," Guariglia said. "Those dangers you were concerned about are still going to be there."