Full interview: Flock Safety CEO addresses mass surveillance, access concerns

OK, you're the CEO of Flock Safety. That's right. Let's talk about your background. I wanna hear a little bit about kind of how Flock safety began. Yeah, so about 7 years ago, uh, like a lot of people are watching, I was just a guy sitting at my house, and the following night a bunch of cars got broken into, uh, and in a place like Atlanta if you break into 10 F-150s inevitably you're gonna find a firearm and so it's pretty good business if you're a gang and when the Atlanta Police Department came to our neighborhood. They said sorry like we we can't, we can't do anything and I was pretty confused. I'm an engineer. This seemed like a pretty solvable problem and when I looked at the national data it is about 9 in 10 out of 10 times when you break into a car or break into a home, you get away with it. So Atlanta wasn't particularly bad they were particularly normal and when I asked like, well why, why, my assumption and maybe you have this assumption too is like it's an apathetic issue like they don't care because it's no one got hurt. It's a it's an evidence problem. The, the lack of evidence was making it impossible for them to do their job and said that they needed a license plate. So I called two of my friends from Georgia Tech, Paige and Matt, and said we gotta build a camera that reads license plates, and APD says if we do this they can catch some bad guys and so we built these cameras on the dining room table, put them on my neighborhood, uh, and almost to the date 2 months later that same group came in middle of the night. We had our cameras and that following morning they put a BOLO out for that license plate pulled the individual over in traffic stopped all the stolen stuff was still there person went to jail. So the precipitous of your company was you being a victim of a crime. Yeah, and I knew, I knew nothing about law enforcement. I knew nothing about public safety. I've never carried a gun. I've never had a bad that never even like never even crossed my mind, but then you start to realize that like everyone wants to feel safe. And so another neighborhood found out about it, so we, you know, we said, oh, OK, I guess we could build something for you, another neighborhood, another when you wake up and it's a, a bit prolific, yeah, and then this is in 2017. This is less than, you know, 10 years, uh, ago. Your company has expanded pretty rapidly. How many. are you in right now? Yeah, we're just in the north of 6000 cities which generally speaking is most of the country. 6000 cities that's rapid expansion. It's pretty nauseating. I mean, I'm on the road pretty much every day of the week. Yeah, I would imagine so. So what brings you to Denver today? Yeah, look, one of the best parts of my job is visiting our customers, uh, and Denver has been a great customer over the last year. We've solved a bunch of crime. We've seen a nice reduction in crime across the city and so I figured it's an opportunity to come meet with elected officials in the police department. Yeah, uh, and you're here because I mean you know what's been making the news and obviously I mean there's been concerns about flock safety and mass surveillance. How are you addressing these concerns with the elected officials here in Denver? Yeah, I mean I think I'm glad you asked about the founding story because I think it sets a precedent that I live in Atlanta now you live in Denver. I have the same worries, the same concerns, the same goals. I want my kids to be safe. And I want to still live in America and one of the beautiful parts about America is that every city is a little bit different. And so when you look at the way I architected flock, it is to give those maybe think about levers on a on a system to the elected officials because what makes sense in Atlanta might not make sense in Denver, might might not make sense in Austin, Texas. So every city kind of has these controls as it relates to things like. Data retention. Most cities do 30 days. Some cities do 5 years. Some cities do 7 days. I, as a CEO of the company, I actually don't care. I care what Atlanta does quite a bit. That's I, I vote. That's where I live. I vote for people that I think represent my values. We also think about transparency, so every single search inside a flock is audited, that that audits stored in perpetuity. So all the data gets deleted at 30 days. that search history gets stored forever and who owns that data? All the data is owned by the city or whoever's paying for the cameras. So if it's if you added one in your neighborhood, which you should, your neighborhood owns that data you control who has access to it, who it's shared with. So some of our neighborhoods share with local law authorities, some don't, and I think if you look at a place like Denver, all the data is owned by Denver PD. We have, I can't even access to it even if in a life or death emergency you called and said hey Garrett, we, we really gotta get to it. I, I don't have the keys. It's encrypted. Only Denver PD can unlock that. So you can't even as the CEO like open up a computer somewhere and tap into. No, I mean, and, and to be, to be fair, right, these, these situations exist, right? Life or death situations exist all the time. Luckily law enforcement works really well together and so if there's a situation in Boulder they're not gonna call Flock they're gonna call Denver and say hey we gotta work together yeah and do you own the cameras still? You lease the cameras back to the city? Yeah, it's a really unique business model so we own all the equipment we have the obligation to make sure it works and that might seem like a counterintuitive approach, but if you look at, you know, I'll uh I'll talk about Atlanta for a second, there was a horrible, horrible homicide in our main park. She cameras everyone in this park. None of them are working, none of our cameras. Why? Who's gonna maintain them? Things break. There's thunderstorms. There's lightning. All these things can happen. And so we have a service responsibility to the city to make sure that the cameras are always working and all the data is owned by the city. So do you have like contractors or you know, full time, we have hundreds of flock employees driving around the country in bucket trucks every single day. So a lot of news over the last few months here in Denver about your company. Uh, city council voted not to extend the flock contract out of concerns the system would be exploited for immigration matters. How are you addressing these concerns? Yes, I think. Every city needs to make a decision what's right for them. Some cities work really closely with federal authorities. Denver works very closely with federal authorities. Now in the case of Denver, if there's no desire to work with ICE, that's great. We need to create a safer city while still upholding the values we have. And so in the case of someone like Denver, if the goal is to never work with ICE, just tell Denver PD you can't work with ICE, and it's really simple to do in the system. Um, the concerns that council has raised over the last few months about uh this system, do you believe their concerns are legit? Look, I think everyone's right to an opinion. I think that oftentimes what people don't fully understand they fear so let me give you a good example. There's been a statement that uh ICE has a back door into flock that is technically impossible technically impossible. And you've seen this in cases of other encryption debates where companies have said hey we wanna get access to data and pick someone like Apple. Apple can't access what's encrypted on your device. That's the whole point of encryption is that the person who owns the data has the keys and so while. You know, Denver PD most recently, right, they solved a $12 million heist using Flock, uh, in a nearby mall. You know who made that arrest? The FBI. Because $12 million is a very, very big case. So there's a great example of federal authorities working with local police departments. So I think, look, I think it's an opportunity to explain how this works. Unfortunately technology evolves faster often than kind of policy and kind of the the general public can. And so it's one of the reasons why I'm excited to be here to share some of kind of the facts of how Flock works. Do you think council is misunderstood here or is it misunderstanding some of the I think so, yeah, I think so. Uh, I like to push back on your assertion that ICE does have a backdoor access because my station, my colleagues at my station. They did find the Loveland Police Department, which is a local entity, gave access to an ATF agent who in turn used the system to search for ICE. So I mean there is the access for ICE by all these proxies. How do you reconcile? Yeah, so think at the end of the day Denver PD has total control over where their data goes if they want to share with Loveland. That's up to them. Now in the case of Loveland, that was a task force member assigned to the Loveland Police Department just like Denver has task force members. So when I think about the definition of a back door, you're talking about unfettered route access to a system with no auditing, with no controls in place. In this case, actually everything worked perfectly because you're describing an audited transaction. Now we can debate and you're welcome to debate whether or not that is a search that Denver PD wanted to happen. But it was traced and if they ever wanted to Denver BPD could click one button, no longer sharing with Loveland. I, I believe I heard your communications staff and I think even you may have said this before that you can't police the police data here. I don't think it's my job to that that's a very important distinction. I don't think anyone elected me to be the chief of police of America. The police department has a boss. It's a city manager. City manager has a boss. It's your city council. It is their job to police the police. I think there's also this interesting debate of what is societally accepted in terms of law enforcement, and that's very different city to city, you know I live in Georgia. The rules we enforce are not consistent what necessarily written down. Like I've never been ticketed for jaywalking. I don't know if you have. It's not societally acceptable to ticket someone for jaywalking. Speeding, yes, speeding the school zone, definitely. So in the case of. Of this example like I don't even know how I would enforce it when instead of what we wanna do is we want to give the tools to the city manager, give the tools to the police department to police themselves. By saying you're not here to police the police, I think a lot of people will understand that, but it also is could be, it could be seen as like an easy washing of your hands, right? You're you you own the hardware, you own the cameras, you're, you're kind of like a landlord, you know you have some tenants that might be doing some nefarious things that may be violating state law, Colorado law. How do you, how do you square that? I'm, I'm actually, I think that's a great analogy. If at any moment we believed our customers were breaking the law, we would call the appropriate authorities because like as a as a company we exist to help law and order be delivered. Like for me a safe city is a thriving city, a city that's unsafe, families disappear, businesses disappear like it it it's chaos and so we do think that's a part of our job, but I think the nuance that I'm trying to articulate is that when there is state legislation. We help our customers not break it. That's very different than me proactively doing something like, oh, you searched for the same person 6 times that looks suspicious. Like who, who am I to to tell really anyone what suspicious is? That's not the job we want. There is a contract extension that has been signed in the month of July between the city of Denver and your company. And I understand a city council was not presented with this contract because the amount is below $500,000 so they didn't have an opportunity to question this extension. Uh, there's been concern about this continuing business between the city of Denver and your company. How do you expect to gain the access of council's trust or how do you expect to gain council's trust with this continuing in this manner? Well, I think it's important to reflect on all the success we've had with Denver over the last year but there's countless arrests, countless reductions in crime. I also look at it and say for me if we can build a common ground that everyone wants Denver to be safer. Then it's just a question of how we achieve that goal, and I think based on everything I've read about uh the city council members and the mayor, everyone wants to be safer. Now we have a difference of opinions of how we get there, but as long as we can agree to that premise, I think there's a path forward. Your company has been called Orwellian. You know, by groups like the ACLU, mass surveillance, um, there are calls by groups here in Colorado to have the cameras completely shut down. How do you respond to that? You know, look, I think there's, there's a few things one. I, I'd bucket the criticism in two big buckets for the ACLUs, the EFFs, the activist groups. I actually think this is a healthy debating criticism. Like one of the beautiful parts about America is people have freedom of speech, freedom of opinion, like and they're entitled to that, and they should, we should face the criticism. I think it makes us a better company. I think it makes Denver Police Department a better police department because absent that criticism there's no feedback loop. And so even at the beginning, if you look at the beginning of the company when we were first getting started, we had a lot of agencies and cities in California adopt us. And one of the reasons why is because they're like, hey, we wanna have better transparency with how our law enforcement uses technology. Great, we'll build that. I didn't know that was a problem. It wasn't a problem in Atlanta. It's a big problem in Oakland, California. So we built that and so all of this feedback actually builds a better product because once again we're not gonna force any of this on any city. So even something may be as simple to you and me as a transparency portal where you can log in and see, hey, where are the cameras and what are the search reasons every city gets to pick. So I, I welcome the criticism. Now I think where the second bucket that I, I would say is not as welcome, it is just threats, threats of violence, threats of uh like disruption. It's like, well, it's not, it's it's actually not productive, I think, because as long as everyone agrees we wanna be safe. Let's work towards a way to do that that makes sense for every city. Are you worried about any sort of state law that could come up here in Colorado that would shut down your company here? I think it's highly unlikely. I think we are huge advocates of regulation like uh to our earlier discussion, I, I'm not the police chief of Colorado, definitely not the police chief of Denver. I would love it if the people that we democratically elect. Did took a stance on what is the right policy. You look at what we just got done in Virginia. We worked really hard with Governor Jukin to get a new bill in place to regulate license plate readers in Virginia that makes sense for the residents of Virginia, and that should be different than Colorado and different than Texas and definitely different than California. Are you confident that city council will eventually renew? Figure contract here in Denver. I do. I think Flock is hands down the most effective way for modern police forces to fight crime and as long as the city council wants Denver to be safer in 2026 and 2027 and beyond, Flock is really the best option for Denver. And what are you telling them as you're here in Denver? I'm mostly listening because I don't live in Denver. And like I don't necessarily I don't claim to know every detail of their concerns, so I really want to better understand what are their concerns and can we build a product can we build a solution that puts their concerns at ease because I know speaking on behalf of Denver PD is a really successful product for them and in a moment in time where budgets are tight where staffing is low. That's the that's the wrong trend if you're trying to fight crime. Technology is that force multiplier. you gotta find a way to make sure that everyone's happy with how this works. So you're in 6000 municipalities. Do you have any federal contracts? We don't. No, so no contracts with ICE, no contracts with ICE. If there is any opportunity down the road, would you sign a contract with ICE? I mean, I think who knows what the future unlies. I mean, to be clear, it's a federal law enforcement agency. We're in the. This of enforcing the law helping our customers enforce the law, so would we sign it? I mean, I can't say no, never, but not today. We don't have a contract, nor do we have really any pipeline with them. How do you feel about news reports coming out there showing that ICE has had access to this system by proxy by through through other agencies? Yeah, I think if it is societally acceptable for that city, that's up for that city. So I don't really have a personal opinion on IICE or a personal opinion on their use of flock. But in the case of pick a random city, if that's really important to them to feel safe, they should do what makes sense for them. Uh, I think we've covered a lot here. Uh, you've answered all my questions. Um, I've noticed my me myself as a reporter, I go through the search warrants here in the city of Denver, uh, once a week, and I see flock referenced in a lot of like criminal cases. Uh, one case that comes to mind was a guy who, um. Shot at another guy. It was a road rage case and within like 45 minutes the police department was able to track down that uh suspect within 45 minutes using the the the grid using the network which I think is really interesting and I've been here in Denver now for 15 years and I can see that in the criminal cases. I would imagine these are some of the cases that you're bringing to councils maybe some and I think there's a, there's a, there's an interesting study. So if you look at the kind of national research on crime. I would have bet That if you have harsher punishment, you have less crime. But if you look at how criminals tend to think, it's not calculus, it's boolean logic, and the boolean logic is I'm not gonna get caught. Because there's a 50/50 chance you get away with homicide and there's a 90% chance you get away with stealing someone's car, so you do the math. As soon as that paradigm shifts, and criminals now know that if you commit a crime in Denver, you will get held accountable, which to me is a very basic concept but still hard to implement. Crime goes down and there's countless cities, hundreds of cities across the country where they're feeling this, and I want that same for Denver. I think Denver deserves that. Yeah. What do you just say to someone who's kind of on the fence with this right now? They're like they can see the benefits, but they also are worried about the mass surveillance concerns. What do you say to someone? Yeah, I think criticism welcome. Like I'm not perfect. I don't have all the answers. I think there's 300+ million Americans. We gotta build a solution that makes us safe while still protecting our civil liberties and the values that make make us really the best country in the world. And with that I'd welcome like we have 300+ open jobs come work with us. Like if you want to solve this problem and do it in a way that makes you feel really good. Apply for a job at Flock. We'd love to have you. So look, to our earlier conversation, we don't have all the answers and we've gotten a lot of good feedback from cities in Colorado, not just Denver of, hey, how do we help enforce how we want our law enforcement to use Flock? So one of those examples is there are cities like Denver that do not want their police departments aiding in immigration control. So now in Flock if you search for ICE, immigration, a number of keywords, we flag it. And say hey That's not a search you can conduct and so I think this is a good example where we're allowing the elected officials to control and influence how law enforcement does their job. So that would be an option that Denver could implement here and if there is an agency like the Loveland police. allowing an outside federal agency to do searches for ICE, that's something that would be flagged that would be flagged. That's right, and I think that's the beauty of the company is like we are only 7 years old, we're quite innovative, quite nimble, and when we hear a good idea, we, you know, we run with it.