By Gonzalez Olivieri, on Immigration Updates
Flock Safety, an Atlanta-based tech startup founded in 2017, operates thousands of AI-enabled license plate recognition cameras across the United States, pitching them to local police departments as effective crime-fighting tools. The company has grown rapidly by emphasizing success stories (from solving burglaries to catching bank robbers) but has faced mounting controversy over how its data has been accessed by immigration enforcement agencies pursuing deportations, particularly under the Trump administration. The revelations have prompted numerous cities including Austin, Cambridge, and Santa Cruz to cancel or pause their contracts with Flock.
The core issue centers on how Flock’s data, which the company claims is owned and controlled by individual customers, has nonetheless been widely accessed for immigration enforcement through its “national lookup” network that allows customers to search each other’s data. An investigation found that police officers conducted thousands of immigration-related searches on behalf of federal agencies, and the company admitted to running a secret pilot program providing direct access to the Department of Homeland Security. While Flock claims to have implemented new safeguards, critics argue the company cannot be trusted after repeated misrepresentations, including a controversial case where Texas authorities used the system to investigate a woman who had an abortion, with the company initially backing the false claim that it was merely a safety concern.
For more information on this, and other immigration matters, contact the attorneys at Gonzalez Olivieri LLC today.
Reference:
The Independent, The AI Surveillance Company Whose Data Is Being Fed to ICE, https://www.msn.com/en-us/news... (last visited Jan. 19, 2026).
