Residents of an Atlanta suburb have been rocked by the revelation that sales employees at Flock have been accessing sensitive cameras in the town to demonstrate the company’s surveillance technology to police departments around the country. The cameras accessed have included surveillance tech in a children’s gymnastics room, a playground, a school, a Jewish community center, and a pool.
Flock has taken issue with the way that residents and activists have characterized the access but confirmed that the camera access did happen as part of its sales demonstrations. A blog post by Jason Hunyar, a Dunwoody, Georgia resident who learned about Flock accessing the city’s cameras by obtaining Flock access logs via a public records request is called “Why Are Flock Employees Watching Our Children?”
Flock has pushed back against this characterization on social media, in a blog post, at city council meetings, and in a statement to 404 Media: “The city of Dunwoody is one city in our demo partner program,” a Flock spokesperson told 404 Media. “The cities involved in this program have authorized select Flock employees to demonstrate new products and features as we develop them in partnership with the city. Moreover, select engineers can access accounts with customer permission to debug or fix any issues that may arise. No one is spying on children in parks, as the substack incorrectly asserts.”
Flock also argued that it is more transparent than any other surveillance company because it creates these access logs at all, and they can be obtained using public records requests. “Also, I must state the irony of the situation. We’re one of the few technology companies in this space dedicated to radical transparency […] I understand the concern from the resident, but it is unequivocally false to assert that Flock, or the police, or city officials are doing anything other than using technology to stop major crimes in the city.”
The records Hunyar obtained, however, show that some of the cameras that were accessed were in sensitive locations, including the pool at the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta (in Dunwoody), the children’s gymnastics room at MJCCA, and several fitness centers and studios. The access logs obtained by Hunyar show at the very least how expansive Flock’s surveillance systems can be in a single city, encompassing not just cameras purchased by the city but also cameras purchased by private businesses.
A picture of Dunwoody’s “Real Time Crime Center,” which is “powered by Flock Safety.” Image: City of Dunwoody
After Hunyar wrote about what he found, Flock has agreed to stop using Dunwoody’s cameras to demonstrate its product. Flock’s FAQ page states that “Flock customers own their data” and “Flock will not share, sell, or access your data.” It also states “nobody from Flock Safety is accessing or monitoring your footage.” Flock also published a blog post that notes “one of the benefits communities value most about Flock technology is the ability for law enforcement to directly access privately owned cameras, if and only if the organization allows them to, for crime-solving and security purposes.”
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“Fair questions have been asked about conducting demos on cameras in sensitive locations when doing this very critical testing in the real-world. Last week, in the City of Dunwoody, questions were raised about a demo conducted as part of authorized activity approved under the city’s demo partner agreement, on cameras at a local Jewish Community Center. Although the camera was only viewed during a routine demo, we understand that this is a sensitive location for many. We have therefore determined that employees will be trained to only conduct demos in more public locations, like retail parking lots,” Flock wrote in the blog. “Accusing someone of spying on children is not a policy disagreement; it is a life-altering allegation. Claims of inappropriate conduct by our employees are false. The employees being named online are well-intentioned employees who accessed a camera network with the city’s explicit permission, as part of their job. They are now being called predators for it.”
The incident prompted a direct email apology from Flock CEO Garrett Langley to the Marcus Jewish Community Center of Atlanta which was then forwarded to Dunwoody Mayor Lynn Deutsch. That email was obtained by Hunyar using a public records request and was shared with 404 Media: “You may have seen that questions have been raised about Flock employees’ access to security cameras near MJCCA property. While there is a lot of misinformation propagated by some of the voices making these allegations, I want to be direct and apologize for our poor judgement.”
“Because of our relationship with Dunwoody PD as a development partner–meaning we had explicit permission from Dunwoody to use their Flock system for both testing (for product improvement) and demonstration–Flock employees did occasionally access Dunwoody’s devices for those purposes,” Langley added. “I recognize that the choice to use MJCCA, rather than parts of the city, was a poor one on our part. I am cognizant of the additional, well-founded sensitivity of the Jewish community to security concerns at this time. Therefore, I would like to extend a formal apology to you and the entire MJCCA community for this poor decision. Candidly, it is because of the very real security concerns the MJCCA community is feeling that I am so proud of our partnership, and those with Jewish organizations across the country.”
For nearly three hours earlier this month, resident after resident questioned the Dunwoody City Council about its relationship with Flock, which is extremely close. Flock has repeatedly championed its work in Dunwoody, and Dunwoody has a “real time crime center” that features a giant wall of Flock cameras and is “powered by Flock Safety.”
“Powered by Flock Safety, the cutting-edge RTCC is a comprehensive command center that brings together the City’s license plate recognition (LPR) cameras, gunshot detection, police body cameras, Condor pan-tilt cameras, Flock’s Adaptive 911, call geolocation, and third-party video cameras,” the city’s website says.
At the city council meeting, the residents universally explained to their elected officials that they did not want their tax money funding surveillance technology that has been used to collaborate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, to look for a woman who had an abortion, has been abused by police officers to stalk women and surveil protests, has suffered from numerous security and privacy scandals, and was now using their city as, at best, a live surveillance sales demonstration and, at worst, was surveilling the city’s children.
“It’s pretty shocking that Flock employees are watching children in Dunwoody. Like, isn’t that mind boggling?,” resident Kenneth Westmoreland testified. “I think it would go a long way if you just showed up with even a little bit of willingness beyond public comment to listen to people who actually know what they’re talking about … It’s like, would you put their camera in your child’s bedroom? I don’t know, but it seems a little bit like it to me.”
Another resident, Aaron Miller, suggested that continuing the Flock contract could be a liability for the city, mentioned that its cameras have been used for stalking, that Flock data has been given to ICE, and that Dunwoody’s cameras had been accessed by Flock. “If and when this misconduct crosses yet another line into unequivocal stalking or god forbid something worse, you will be responsible and you will have to answer for the fact that you knew well in advance that this technology enables and facilitates these kinds of gross violations, and it’s not just about the fine details of the contract,” Miller said.
“We should get rid of Flock,” another resident, Sean Collins, said plainly. “I want to congratulate everyone sitting here that has come out all these weeks and put all their effort and their time into this to not only research and write speeches, but to try and inform you guys and persuade you guys. I think it’s awesome that the community is building, unfortunately, around a negative event and hopefully in the future we can build around something positive instead.”
During the three hours, I was impressed with the depth of knowledge residents had about a relatively complex surveillance system and the many ways that Flock has been abused, many of which we have reported on over the last several years. Not every resident got every fact correct, and Flock has made it abundantly clear that it believes the idea that it is “spying on children” is unfair. And yet, it is reasonable for residents to wonder why their city is being used as a live sales demo, why their community is so heavily surveilled, and why these cameras are being accessed so often. It is reasonable for residents to want to have a conversation about whether they want this technology at all.
And the overwhelming message from Dunwoody residents is: This is too much. They are not interested in minor tweaks to contracts, lip service about privacy, being told that their concerns are overblown or don’t matter, and being told to go away. They are not interested in being told that the reason there are livestreaming cameras at the children’s gymnastics room is complicated, actually. And yet, that is exactly what their politicians and Flock itself have been telling them.
After these and many other impassioned speeches from residents, Dunwoody mayor Lynn Deutsch said she was “concerned and perplexed” when she learned that sensitive Dunwoody cameras were being accessed, then said “I sought a solution and where we landed is that Flock will no longer use Dunwoody for demonstration projects. So that wasn’t acceptable. They have apologized to the JCC [Jewish Community Center] … I’m not excusing it at all, I was very frustrated and angry and I believe this is a solution, at least part of a solution from keeping them out of places Flock should not be.”
“The inference that we’re doing something behind doors, that we’re taking bribes, it’s all kinds of not at all correct,” she added. “We haven’t done any of this in secret. I cannot stress enough that none of this was done without proper notice.” She then said that she did not have any interest in ending the city’s Flock contract, though some tweaks to its existing contract would be sought.
Jason Hunyar, the man who requested the public records that showed how broad Flock’s network is and the fact that Flock employees were accessing the city’s cameras, shared an email exchange he had with Deutsch and other city officials when he first discovered what was happening.
“Mayor/City Council, Here is a write-up I’m going to release publicly after I send this email detailing the unfettered access that Flock has to our data. This includes … watching us and our children at the library, MJCCs pools, MJCCs fitness centers, and MJCCs gymnastics studio,” he wrote. “They are even watching you in your council chambers … I am also going to be a member of the JCC coming this fall and my son is going to be in the preschool where some of these exact cameras that these flock employees are looking at. This is where a ton of my concern comes from.”
Deutsch responded and suggested it was irresponsible for him to reveal this information: “Does the JCC realize you’re sharing all about their security system publicly?”
“If I was sending a child to the JCC for preschool, I’m pretty confident, and I say this as a Jewish grandmother with a grandchild in a synagogue preschool, that my number one concern would be security in today’s environment,” she wrote. “I’m disappointed to know that all this is in the public domain, because I think we’re better off when the bad guys don’t know exactly what precautions have been taken. But here we are.”
“I look forward to protecting MJCCA and the City of Dunwoody for years to come.”
Hunyar told me that prior to seeing reporting by 404 Media and the YouTuber Benn Jordan, who lives nearby and has revealed numerous Flock security and privacy problems, he had “never submitted a public records request before or gone to a city council meeting.” He said that he has been frustrated with how the city has responded: “I’ve been trying to explain to them how the technology works, they ask the police, the police lies to them at the city council meeting,” he said. “It’s been a lot of educating them. They’re trying to do this performative stuff by slightly tweaking the contract, and [when I tell them how Flock works], I think ‘Why are you asking me about this and not freaking out that Flock has access to cameras in the children’s gymnastics room?’”
Over the last few months, numerous cities across the country have decided to end their Flock contracts after organizing by residents. In some cases, police and city council members have themselves decided to end Flock contracts due to some of the company’s scandals. In one case, a Virginia police department decided to get rid of Flock after the police chief felt Langley was mischaracterizing the valid privacy concerns of residents as a concerted conspiracy against Flock and its technology.
Despite all of the reporting and outrage about this type of surveillance, cities around the country are still signing new contracts with Flock, often using “discretionary” police or city council funds that can be used with little or no public debate.
Georgia Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Chris Carr saw all that happened in Dunwoody and decided to praise Flock: “Mayor – thanks to Council and you for supporting the use of FLOCK technology,” he wrote. “Georgia’s Constitution says that government has one paramount duty – the protection of person and property. I’m proud to say that Dunwoody’s leadership lived up to their duty by continuing to partner with FLOCK.”
Making anything other than minor changes to the Dunwoody contract does not seem to be on the table; Dunwoody officials including the mayor declined to speak to 404 Media for this story, offering only a statement from a city spokesperson that said “We are working through a range of items with Flock as we develop a Master Services Agreement for consideration by City Council.” When I followed up, I was told “This was discussed during the City Council meeting. I don’t have anything to add.” Dunwoody voted to renew its contract after all of this.
In Langley’s apology email to the MJCCA, he said “I look forward to protecting MJCCA and the City of Dunwoody for years to come.”
About the author
Jason is a cofounder of 404 Media. He was previously the editor-in-chief of Motherboard. He loves the Freedom of Information Act and surfing.
