Flock Safety kills acoustic system designed to detect 'human distress'
The automated license plate reader company Flock Safety is abandoning plans to sell an acoustic gunshot detection device whose ability to detect screaming and other types of “human distress” sparked an outcry from privacy advocates when it was announced in October.
Flock quietly revealed on July 10 that it has decided to “remove” the product, according to a company blog post.
“This feature was designed to help identify potential violent incidents in areas where other public safety tools were less effective,” the blog post said. “The feature was only available to a small number of customers as part of a limited trial, and was never broadly released.”
Flock said the decision is the result of “community consultation.”
The ALPR company emphasized that the detection system was not designed to capture people’s voices in bulk.
“The system cannot understand speech, analyze language, or identify voices,” the blog post said. “It doesn’t now, and it never has.”
The backlash to Flock’s Distress Detection feature began not long after the nonprofit Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) reported on the product’s existence in October 2025.
The system is dangerous because of “the civil liberties concerns it poses, the possibility it could summon armed police to every loud interaction happening on the street, and because in several places this type of spying would be illegal under state eavesdropping laws,” EFF senior policy analyst Matthew Guariglia said in a July 17 blog post that noted Flock’s change.
Flock also was in the news earlier in the month after the Los Angeles Police Department announced it would be the latest in a string of law enforcement agencies to cut ties with the surveillance firm.
The department is seeking more protections for how the information collected by Flock is managed and stored, officials have said.
References in this story
- How Flock's Audio Detection Works, and the Concerns We Hear Most www.flocksafety.com A straightforward explanation of what the sensors do, what they don't, and where we've changed course.
- Flock’s Gunshot Detection Microphones Will Start Listening for Human Voices www.eff.org Flock Safety, the police technology company most notable for their extensive network of automated license plate readers spread throughout the United States, is rolling out a new and troubling product that may create…
- Victory! Flock Ends Rollout of Audio “Distress Detection” of Human Voices www.eff.org Reversing course, Flock Safety—the surveillance technology vendor most known for its extensive network of automated license plate readers—has announced that it will end a pilot for its acoustic gunshot detection devices…
- LAPD sidelines relationship with license-plate reader company Flock Safety therecord.media The Los Angeles Police Department is the latest U.S. municipal agency to rethink its relationship to ALPR company Flock Safety.
- Advanced Cyber Threat Intelligence | Recorded Future www.recordedfuture.com Get real-time, actionable cyber threat intelligence with Recorded Future. Mitigate cyber risks, prioritize threats, and proactively secure your business.
- Suzanne Smalley (@suzannesmalley.bsky.social) bsky.app Reporter covering digital privacy and cybersecurity policy for The Record. Mom. Pub trivia queen. Crossword enthusiast. Literary fiction connoisseur. Idiosyncratic. Signal: Suzanne.236 Email…
