Flock surveillance cameras are drawing growing scrutiny nationwide, as residents and privacy advocates challenge what they describe as an expanding network of license plate readers encroaching on civil liberties.
ATLANTA — A Georgia woman has filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Flock, accusing the Atlanta-based surveillance technology company of allowing “numerous, recurring problems” within its camera network while allegedly downplaying those issues.
The complaint was filed Aug. 25 in federal court in Atlanta. 11Alive contacted Flock on Thursday seeking comment, but the company had not responded as of 2 p.m.
The lawsuit raises multiple claims about the Flock system, which has become the focus of reporting in Georgia and across the United States amid allegations that some local law enforcement officers misused the platform. In certain cases, officers have faced charges tied to unauthorized access, including alleged stalking.
Across metro Atlanta and north Georgia, several law enforcement officers have been arrested this summer in connection with alleged Flock-related violations. Reported cases have surfaced in Clayton, Habersham, Cherokee, Polk, DeKalb and Greene counties, among other examples.
While concerns have popped up in communities around the country — and, as recently as this week, at the state level where Florida Governor Ron DeSantis revoked approval of the cameras for state roads — law enforcement agencies have largely maintained the system is invaluable for criminal investigations.
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The complaint alleges “improper user access is a known and recurring risk” with the Flock network, that its network “has repeatedly been misused by law enforcement personnel,” that such misuse can “continue at substantial volume before intervention,” that access “can persist after users leave the agency whose account they used” and that customer-integrated cameras can in instances give a view to “sensitive private locations.”
The complaint cites some specific examples, such as:
- The former Braselton police chief who “searched tags associated with his former girlfriend and her teenage daughter roughly 600 times”;
- A deputy who searched a woman’s plate 1,639 times across a month-long period “for personal monitoring” in Richmond County;
- A demonstration in Dunwoody that the city’s real-time crime system had feeds from a children’s gymnastics room, a playground, a school, a pool and a Jewish community center.
The complainant argues that Flock’s steps to address concerns “do not address the more profound problems,” and that the company has allegedly “acted willfully in its failure to adequately address the error and misuse problem.”
“Flock has known from its inception that law enforcement users could misuse its system for personal surveillance,” the complaint asserts. “…Notwithstanding this, Flock’s Chief Executive Officer Garrett Langley repeatedly characterized Flock misuse as comparatively insignificant… Flock has characterized the problem as rare, isolated misconduct by ‘bad apples’ and emphasized the volume of crimes it claimed the system helped solve.”
Five fundamental counts are alleged against Flock:
- Invasion of privacy
- Negligence
- Negligent design
- Failure to warn
- Intentional infliction of emotional distress
The complaint is asking a judge to certify a class and award unspecified compensatory, consequential, and punitive damages.