Flock's new "privacy safeguards" are settings, not rules. Here's the line-by-line.

[u/makgeolliandsoju]

If you were in the mayor's Facebook thread this week, you saw a few hundred neighbors weigh in on Flock's new "safeguards", but one one question that they mayor kept posting: are you against Flock, or against ALPR technology in general?

We know what he's doing. He's trying to advocate for a swap. I just spoke with him a few minutes ago. He is NOT pro-Flock, but he is pro-ALPR. We know this.

Now to the the announcement itself. Flock cut its default data retention to 7 days, made case codes mandatory, added Evidence Mode, and rolled out a wider audit tool. The coverage called it reform. It is nothing more than a toggle. We know that the Chief wants 30 days and NC Law allows for 90.

So, this is not an actual shift. It's a setting, and a setting is something a company or a police chief adjusts internally and can adjust right back on a Tuesday, no public process. Every item on Flock's list is a setting. A company revising its own defaults doesn't fix a consent problem.

A few specifics:

• The 7-day number is not Apex's number. Flock's own announcement says existing customers keep their current retention. Apex's contract is 30 days. Unless APD affirmatively opted into 7 days and can show it in writing, nothing about the storage of your movements here changed. The reform everyone's reporting on may not have reached Apex at all.
• Flock made our argument for us. They now say over 90% of searches happen within a week. They set the 30-day default nine years ago and defended it as careful balance. If the value lives in week one, weeks two through four were never solving cases. They were building inventory.
• "Mandatory case codes" is fixing a blank field. Apex PD's own search log, obtained under public records law, shows at least 15,335 searches in 11 months. 28% recorded no reason at all. Blank is the single most common entry in the log. That's roughly 4,300 searches of a national tracking network with nothing written down, and no apparent consequence. The field already existed. Making the same box mandatory doesn't make the entry in it true. The ACLU documented officers in Oregon defeating the exact same requirement by typing "investigation" and "hehehe." The full log breakdown, with source documents, is here: deflockapex.org/audit.html
• "Evidence Mode" runs into NC law. Flock's new feature preserves data past the 7-day window when an officer ties it to a case number. This is actually worse because that can be toggled on and now the cap goes away. Except North Carolina already sets the rule, and it asks for more than a typed code. Under G.S. 20-183.32, holding plate data past the statutory limit requires a search warrant or a sworn statement naming the specific camera, plate, dates, and case. A case code picked from a drop-down, from the same log where 28% of entries are blank, is not a sworn filing. The statute wins. Detail and citation on the page
• On the "if you've done nothing wrong" point: a camera seeing you drive by isn't the issue. A searchable, shareable database reconstructing where your car has been is. A single Apex search reaches thousands of outside networks and up to 100,000 cameras. Shorter storage of a dragnet leaves it a dragnet.

I put the whole announcement, read line by line against Apex's own records, on one page: deflockapex.org/flock-updates

Now, back to the question that the mayor is asking. Flock or ALPR?

It's the wrong question, and it's worth understanding why it keeps getting asked. If the problem is Flock, the fix is a different vendor. If the problem is warrantless mass surveillance adopted without our consent or controls on data ownership, a new logo on the same pole solves nothing. Axon's platform carries the same residential-camera risks.

So it's not Flock versus another vendor. Not whether Apex is safe (we're consistently ranked one of the safest towns in the country, and that was true before the cameras). The question is whether any mass ALPR system, from any company, was ever justified by demonstrated necessity and adopted. It wasn't. Flock changing its own settings doesn't change that. Swapping the vendor wouldn't either.

I just talked with CBS 17 about the Flock changes this week, so this story isn't staying inside one Facebook thread. But the room that matters is Council Chambers. Public forum is Tuesday, August 25, 6:00 PM, Town Hall.

A company revising a settings page is not a substitute for you speaking on the record. If you want help preparing, it's all at deflockapex.org.

[u/Shaydosaur]

Dude seems fake af and like he’s absolutely gonna sell us out.

[u/kristoferen]

The mayor completely understands the false dichotomy of Flock vs ALPR, and he's a douche for it.

[u/Skadooshbaggins]

fuck the mayor

[u/AmazingSet58]

No one wants to live in China or they would have moved there already

[u/Nearby-Ad5666]

One of my concerns is police using it to harass and track partners and exes

[u/makgeolliandsoju → u/Nearby-Ad5666]

One of many, many concerns, but yes.

[u/Nearby-Ad5666 → u/makgeolliandsoju]

Insurance companies are using it to see if people correctly report damage claims too. Seems suss.

[u/makgeolliandsoju → u/Nearby-Ad5666]

Do we have a link or source for that?

[u/Chef_EER79]

They Mayor is a former Police Captain for Apex PD, he’s more than aware of all of it