Flock Assures Residents They’re Victims of Public Corruption, Not Surveillance

ATLANTA – Flock sought to calm privacy concerns Thursday by assuring residents that its municipal surveillance contracts represented a straightforward transfer of public money into private hands.

“We’ve clearly failed to communicate what we do,” a company spokesperson said. “People see microphones on street poles and assume there’s some sophisticated operation behind them. Sometimes a city just has money and we would like it.”

The spokesperson urged residents to distinguish between the company’s sales materials, which describe a powerful network of detection tools, and its public statements, which explain why nobody should worry about any of those tools working.

“Those brochures are for procurement officers,” he said. “It’s frankly irresponsible to read them as a citizen.”

At a community information session, representatives presented a diagram tracing the system’s operation from the city treasury through a regional reseller to an account receivable. Asked where residents’ personal information entered the process, the presenter returned to the slide showing the city treasury.

“We already know your billing address,” he explained. “It’s city hall.”

The company also offered to release a heavily redacted invoice showing that most of the surveillance budget had gone toward a dashboard. A separate maintenance agreement covered keeping the dashboard green.

City officials welcomed the clarification, noting that the contract had undergone the same review process used to purchase a $480,000 economic development logo.

“We asked whether it would make the community safer,” the mayor said. “They showed us the dashboard again. It had a map.”

When a resident asked whether the city could cancel the contract if the equipment did not perform as advertised, the mayor deferred to the vendor’s representative, who said that performance and renewal were handled by separate departments.

Flock subsequently announced an independent review of its marketing materials to determine how residents had acquired such a high opinion of its technology. Pending the review, the company would remove several capabilities from its website.

No changes to the equipment were planned.

The spokesperson acknowledged that rebuilding public trust would take time, but asked residents to judge the company by its intentions.

“Please,” he said. “We’re not Palantir. We’d be perfectly happy getting paid to do nothing.”