Why Flock Cameras Are Facing Backlash

**Ryan Knutson** (0:00)
Hey, it's Ryan.
Our colleague Imani Moise is here to guest host today's episode. Here it is.

**Garrett Langley** (0:09)
No Flock City!

**Imani Moise** (0:15)
Last night, protesters in Atlanta rallied against a new street surveillance technology, flock cameras.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:21)
We don't want a flock city, right?

**SPEAKER_5** (0:23)
We don't want flock in our city, we don't want flock in our town.

**Imani Moise** (0:27)
Demonstrations like this one are happening across the US this week.

**Ryan Knutson** (0:31)
When I say flock, you say off.

**SPEAKER_4** (0:33)
Flock!

**Kris Maher** (0:38)
This company really has become a lightning rod. It's become such a focal point for opposition.

**Imani Moise** (0:44)
Our colleague Kris Maher was there in Atlanta, reporting on the backlash to these subtle little cameras.

**Kris Maher** (0:50)
They're very inconspicuous initially, but once you start seeing them, you'll see them pretty frequently.

**Imani Moise** (0:57)
Flock cameras are essentially the next generation of traffic light cameras, with one big difference. Their abilities are supercharged by artificial intelligence.
Supporters say flock cameras have helped police keep communities safe.

**Kris Maher** (1:11)
They say these are extremely powerful tools that help them solve crimes, all kinds of crimes from car thefts to missing persons cases, to violent crimes, robberies, homicides, and they're highly effective.

**Imani Moise** (1:28)
Solving homicides and robberies sounds like a good thing, but you mentioned that there are nationwide protests against flock right now. What is the central concern that people are voicing about the technology?

**Kris Maher** (1:39)
So mostly it's privacy concerns and that these cameras are starting to enable what people call a surveillance state. I think people are becoming aware of how powerful these technologies are, and they're starting to question how much do they want them in society and in their lives, and how transparent do people want their lives to be to organizations, whether it's a corporation or the government or the police department.

**Imani Moise** (2:07)
Welcome to The Journal, our show about money, business, and power. I'm Imani Moise. It's Thursday, August 20th.
Coming up on the show, Flock's AI cameras are leading to arrests and backlash.

**SPEAKER_7** (2:34)
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**Imani Moise** (4:11)
Flock Safety, the company behind the cameras, has been around for almost a decade. It was co-founded by a man named Garrett Langley.

**Garrett Langley** (4:19)
I live in a city called Atlanta, and I was frustrated. Crime felt too easy to get away with.

**Imani Moise** (4:26)
That's Langley giving a TED Talk earlier this year.
Langley, an electrical engineer by training, was fed up with crime happening in his own neighborhood. Here's Kris again.

**Kris Maher** (4:37)
He was seeing break-ins to houses and cars, and he said the next day, the police would show up and sort of shrug their shoulders and say, there's not much we can do. We don't know who did this and we don't have fleets, and he said, I'm going to do something about this.

**Garrett Langley** (4:51)
So I did what engineers did.
I built a license plate reading camera. It sounds simple, but I called two of my best friends from Georgia Tech and we built this camera.