2026-09-29 · contested story

Surveillance Company Tells Cops It Wants to Add Facial Recognition to Flock Cameras

A surveillance vendor called VIDIZMO has been pitching police departments on adding facial recognition, behavior prediction, and 'racial and gender analysis' to data gathered by Flock Safety cameras—explicitly to 'close that gap' that Flock itself refuses to fill. Flock CEO Garrett Langley has publicly declared, 'We will not add facial recognition to our devices,' but 404 Media obtained a May email in which a VIDIZMO salesperson pitched Johnson City, Tennessee police on unifying Flock and Axon data into 'one searchable platform' searchable 'by face, vehicle, or object in seconds.' The story lands amid a broader national reckoning over Flock's rapidly expanding network of 120,000+ cameras, documented police misuse, bipartisan congressional scrutiny, and a wave of vandalism against the cameras.

How each side frames it

left
"so the moment someone on your watchlist walks past a camera, the system names them, on the video, in the event feed, and in the recording, without an operator having to recognize the face themselves."
"the tool can pick out potential witnesses by how often their cars pass through a neighborhood, or surface a driver's “associates” from the cameras they pass together."
"He describes this in one video as “Netflix for stalkers”."
"My biggest concern was and will continue to be that they are a mass surveillance company that collects billions and billions of license plate scans every month on people who have done nothing wrong"
"He pulled out a picture of my truck and accused me of stealing a package."
center
"We have got to find a way to balance in America privacy and security"
"However, this sweeping rejection risks throwing out the public safety baby with the privacy bathwater."
"Let me be perfectly clear about this system: It is not a surveillance tool"
"I was terrified I was facing the possibility of spending the rest of my life in prison for a crash I knew I had not been involved in."
"Beyond mining data brokers, ICE is also using facial recognition technology to identify protesters and undocumented immigrants."
right
"Flock Safety new privacy reforms cut data retention in privacy protection push"
"AI concerns have 'conveniently' popped up ahead of midterm elections: Miranda Devine"
"The AI doomsday campaign is 'easy to dismantle'"

What each side left out

The left left out — covered by the The Sun (Lowell Sun) & Newsweek
The left left out — covered by the USA Today
The right left out — covered by the 404 Media & Wired & The Guardian US
The right left out — covered by the Newsweek & NBC News
The center left out — covered by the 404 Media
The center left out — covered by the Wired

What's actually true?

[verified] Flock CEO Garrett Langley publicly stated the company will not add facial recognition to its devices.
[verified] VIDIZMO advertises the capability to export FlockOS footage to platforms that do facial recognition, behavior prediction, and racial and gender analysis, though it has not yet built the specific Flock export tool.
[verified] Flock built an AI tool (Nightshift/OS Investigate) for police that can identify drivers and track vehicles by movement patterns, despite years of saying its tech 'cannot recognize, identify, or track individuals.'
[verified] Flock reduced its default data retention period from 30 days to seven days and will require agencies to opt in to Audit Assistance.
[verified] Five former Albany, Georgia police officers were charged with misusing Flock license plate data for personal reasons.
[contested] Flock's network has grown to more than 120,000 cameras across 49 (or all 50) states.
[contested] Security researchers demonstrated Flock cameras could be penetrated and some Condor cameras were streaming feeds live to the open internet.
[verified] Lindsey Isaacs was wrongfully arrested and spent 13 days in jail after a Flock camera sighting of her car became part of a fatal-crash investigation before prosecutors declined to prosecute.

The narrative clash

Is Flock a surveillance tool?
Left: My biggest concern was and will continue to be that they are a mass surveillance company that collects billions and billions of license plate scans every month on people who have done nothing wrong
Right: Let me be perfectly clear about this system: It is not a surveillance tool
Whether Flock does/will do facial recognition and individual tracking
Left: It has now built a system that does both, an artificial intelligence tool for police that can identify drivers and track vehicles by their patterns of movement alone
Right: That's fair. We don't do facial recognition.
Whether the backlash is misinformation or legitimate concern
Left: surveillance technology with security vulnerabilities may do more harm than good when misused
Right: he argues that there is rampant “misinformation” surrounding Flock
What the system is: surveillance or an investigative tool
Left: Flock's tools track people and map who they travel with, which is surveillance whatever the company says.
Right: Flock is a targeted investigative aid, not a surveillance system.
Should cities drop Flock?
Left: Cities are right to cancel Flock contracts over privacy concerns.
Right: Rejecting Flock outright gives up real public-safety benefits; control it rather than ban it.

18 sources analyzed

404 Media Wired The Guardian US NBC News PBS NewsHour The Damage Report USA Today The Sun Newsweek Fox Business hiphopcanada.com rawstory.com WBUR WSJ yahoo.com Talking Points Memo WNYC Studios | Podcasts The Currency

Perspectivity reads the coverage — not just who published it.

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