Who Owns Flock Cameras?

Flock Safety is increasingly in the news over its controversial AI-powered surveillance cameras. But how did the business start? And who exactly owns it? Well, Flock, or Flock Group Inc., to give it its legal name, was founded in 2017 by Georgia Tech alumni Garrett Langley, Matt Feury, and Paige Todd. Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Flock is a privately held company, so there is no single public owner as there would be with a publicly listed business. Instead, the company is owned by private shareholders, including its founders and investors.

Before Flock, Langley had prior startup experience that included a prominent role in the car subscription service Clutch and the live-events platform Experience, the latter of which was sold to Cox Enterprises in 2014. He said the idea for Flock came after becoming frustrated that police investigating neighborhood burglaries often found themselves with little evidence to work with.

Flock's cameras started out as license plate readers but they now capture considerably more than license plates. Today, the company's technology is used by thousands of law enforcement agencies and communities across the U.S. Flock has enjoyed plenty of backing, too, with major funding in 2025 led by Andreessen Horowitz, as well as additional support from Greenoaks Capital and Bedrock Capital, among others. Indeed, Flock has emerged as a leading player in public safety technology, and in 2023, it was listed among the fastest-growing companies in the U.S. But its rapid rise has also brought growing scrutiny over its technology and expanding role in policing.

On LinkedIn, Flock describes itself as a "public safety platform designed to help communities prevent and reduce crime, not just respond to it." Its work involves partnerships with cities, law enforcement agencies, schools, businesses, and neighborhoods, offering AI-powered cameras and software for public-safety and investigative use by law enforcement.

But the company's rapid expansion in recent years has also drawn criticism. Opponents — including the American Civil Liberties Union — claim that Flock's AI-powered cameras amount to a mass-surveillance network, particularly because the system can enable the sharing of sensitive data across thousands of agencies.

Concerns also arose after a report last year by 404 Media said that local police in the U.S. repeatedly searched Flock's database on behalf of ICE, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, raising questions about data misuse, federal access, and the strength of the company's safeguards. Flock said it doesn't have a direct relationship with ICE, explaining that its clients have control over data sharing, and that it had added new compliance safeguards to make sure federal access is transparent, limited, and locally controlled. Some cities have suspended or canceled contracts with Flock after public outcry over the cameras, while one privacy activist even developed a tool aimed at helping people identify and avoid Flock cameras. Some are even tearing down the cameras in protest. Meanwhile, Flock continues to insist that its technology is useful for solving crimes and has measures in place designed to deter abuse.