What CEOs Are Saying: Law Enforcement Tech

On Thursday, Flock Safety announced it was tightening the rules on its license plate reader network. Starting January 1, police departments using the cameras will be required to run an audit tool that flags abnormal searches, and will have to attach every search to a case number. Flock also now recommends that law enforcement agencies retain data for only seven days, down from the previous thirty days.

This was Flock’s response to a year of pressure from across the country. More than 50 agencies and jurisdictions have canceled, suspended, or rejected contracts since January, according to DeFlock. Cameras have been vandalized, and Republicans in Congress filed bills in July to restrict the technology.

Flock is privately held, so there is no earnings call. But three public companies that also sell technology to police and government agencies reported on the same day of Flock’s revised guidelines: SoundThinking, Rekor Systems, and Cellebrite. All three described facets of the same problem…