Slashdot has reported:

Flock founder and CEO Garrett Langley defended the company’s surveillance technology at a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco on Wednesday, saying its benefits for public safety outweigh the risks. The company makes licence plate cameras and other recording devices, and has faced growing criticism that has led to cancelled contracts and layoffs.

“If we want to live in a society where, if you commit a crime, you have a higher probability of being held accountable, we shouldn't pause progress,” Langley said. He argued that introducing surveillance technology at scale does not carry risks greater than its rewards.

During the interview, Langley answered difficult questions about the criticism with anecdotes from conversations with police chiefs and city leaders across the United States, and accounts of crimes Flock’s technology had supposedly helped solve. He offered few concrete proposals addressing people’s concerns. He presented the technology as an advance that was somewhat inevitable, and suggested people seeking a society with less crime would have to give up some privacy in return.

“Technology, at its core, in its definition, is just doing things better. It's not doing things perfect,” Langley said. He compared the technology’s shortcomings with accidents involving driverless cars: “Driverless cars, I think, is a fair analogy. Driverless cars, I think, are definitively safer than human drivers. And when there's one accident, I don't think the answer is to shut down driverless cars. The answer is to say, 'Hey, let's talk about how we prevent more accidents in the future.'”

Langley said decisions about how Flock should be used should rest with local officials. “We don't want to tell city leaders how to do their job,” he said. “We will provide recommendations, we'll provide defaults, but we're going to minimize the number of mandated features, functions, and policies.” He also argued that society often judges technology against perfection rather than against what came before it.

He acknowledged that “Flock is far from perfect” but maintained that its tools help police departments address staffing shortages and improve public safety. When asked about potential abuse and privacy, he offered few specifics, saying safeguards could be put in place without disrupting police operations.

Langley reiterated that he believes the benefits outweigh the controversy. “There's millions and millions of people who have a better life today because [of] Flock,” he said, adding, “it's worth it because one day they might be a victim.”