License plate reader company Flock launches new product that detects human voices

The automated license plate reader and drone company Flock Safety is rolling out a new gunshot detection product that will also listen to human voices.

The system, dubbed Raven, is being advertised on Flock’s website with the slogan “Safety you can see and now hear.” The image of the product shown on the webpage displays a police alert for “screaming.”

“Detect sounds of human distress and cover the blind spots that cameras miss with Distress Detection,” it says.

Flock Safety operates a surveillance network of automated license plate reader cameras in more than 6,000 communities nationwide and has been mired in controversy as reports of police misuse have surfaced in recent months.

News of the new product has alarmed digital freedom advocates. An Electronic Frontier Foundation blog post on Thursday said that the “high powered microphones parked above densely-populated city streets” should cause cities to cancel their Flock contracts “before this new feature causes civil liberties harms to residents and headaches for cities.” 

A spokesperson for Flock Safety did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Flock cameras are procured by police and private businesses. The company is rapidly expanding its suite of surveillance products, having also recently launched a drone product businesses can use to track shoplifters after they have left stores.

Police departments recently have been found using Flock databases from other agencies across the country in search of abortion patients and undocumented immigrants.

Read More: California AG sues city for allowing out-of-state searches of license plate reader database

Some cities are cancelling Flock contracts. Austin ended its contract with the company in June after an intense backlash from residents.

In August, an Oak Park, Illinois, village trustee wrote that he voted to cancel the city’s contract with Flock after learning from the city’s Civilian Police Oversight Commission that over 99% of Flock alerts “do not result in any police action.”

Flock’s surveillance systems are the subject of an ongoing lawsuit against the city of Norfolk, Virginia, where the plaintiff in the case’s location was recorded by 176 cameras 526 times in a three-and-a-half-month period earlier this year, according to a recent court filing.

The judge in that case has signaled he may rule against Flock, writing in a February opinion that Norfolk Police’s use of the camera network appears to constitute a Fourth Amendment violation by subjecting residents to unreasonable searches.

“It is society's understanding that law enforcement would not, and could not, secretly monitor and catalogue an individual's every movement over a long period of time, meaning that such extensive information gathering is a violation of society's objective expectations of privacy,” the judge held.

“Accordingly, such ‘drag-net’ practices are considered a search.”

Gunshot detection technology also has faced criticism as more police department audits have established that the systems often falsely report other sounds as gunfire and lead to disproportionate police surveillance of majority minority neighborhoods.