Flock Safety is increasingly in the news for its controversial AI-powered surveillance cameras. But how did the business start? And who does it belong to exactly? Well, Flock, or Flock Group Inc., to give it its legal name, was founded in 2017 by Georgia Tech alumni Garrett Langley, Matt Feury, and Paige Todd. Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Flock is privately held, so there is no single public owner like there would be with a publicly traded company. Instead, the company is owned by private shareholders, including its founders and investors.
Before Flock, Langley had startup experience that included a leading role in car subscription service Clutch and live events platform Experience, the latter of which was sold to Cox Enterprises in 2014. He said the idea for Flock came after becoming frustrated that police investigating burglaries in neighborhoods often found themselves with little evidence to work with.
Flock’s cameras started out as license plate readers, but now they capture much more than license plates. Today, the company’s technology is used by thousands of law enforcement agencies and communities across the United States. Flock has also seen significant support, with major funding in 2025 led by Andreessen Horowitz, as well as additional support from Greenoaks Capital and Bedrock Capital, among others. Indeed, Flock has become a major player in the public safety technology space, and by 2023, it was among the fastest growing companies in the United States. But its rapid rise has also brought increasing scrutiny of its technology and a growing role in policing.
The Flock Surveillance Controversy
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On LinkedIn, Flock describes itself as a “public safety platform designed to help communities prevent and reduce crime, not just respond to it.” Its work involves partnerships with cities, law enforcement, schools, businesses and neighborhoods, offering AI-powered cameras and software for public safety and law enforcement investigations.
But the company’s rapid expansion in recent years has also drawn criticism. Opponents — including the American Civil Liberties Union — say Flock’s AI-powered cameras constitute a mass surveillance network, particularly because the system can allow sensitive data to be shared among thousands of agencies.
Concerns also emerged after a report last year by 404 Media said local police in the United States had conducted repeated searches of Flock’s database on behalf of ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, raising questions about data misuse, federal access and the strength of the company’s safeguards. Flock said it does not have a direct relationship with ICE, explaining that its customers control data sharing and that it has added new compliance safeguards to ensure federal access is transparent, limited and locally controlled. Some cities suspended or canceled contracts with Flock after public outcry over the cameras, while one privacy advocate even developed a tool aimed at helping people identify and avoid Flock cameras. Some even tore down the cameras in protest. Meanwhile, Flock continues to insist that its technology is useful in solving crimes and that it has measures designed to deter abuse.
