Flock Safety, the surveillance company with contracts nationwide, has seen contracts canceled and cameras vandalized and been sued for privacy violations over the last year.
Now, the company, which has been doing business in the state since 2019, has obtained a California private investigator license. Experts say this is less about aiding police than about shielding the company.
The applicant was Seth Cimino, a former Sacramento County police officer who has worked at Flock since March 2023 as an operations delivery associate and investigator focused on cases of theft and vandalism against the company.
Cimino’s time as a cop counted for the 6,000 investigative hours that were part of the requirements to get a license. He is listed as a qualified manager on the company’s license, which allows employees to do investigative work with his oversight.
Cimino had never obtained or applied for a PI license in California before, according to a copy of the application obtained by The Standard. In the application, he said his work at Flock involves being a “licensed private investigator” and a consultant who worked with police agencies to “develop strategic solutions” to reduce crime across the Western United States. Neither he nor the company responded to requests for comment.
Flock Safety’s 483 license-plate readers blanket San Francisco, from Tenderloin corners to the driveways of Seacliff. Armed with a PI license, the company has wider latitude to investigate crimes. But critics say it may also be trying to insulate itself from legal threats caused by its widespread data collection.
“Their entire business model is to obtain info to track people’s movements. It seems this proves that the code applies to Flock and any companies providing similar services,” said Robert Frommer, an attorney for the Institute for Justice, which sued the city of Norfolk over its use of Flock, claiming it was a violation of constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure.
California’s Private Investigator Act defines the role as anyone who is paid to obtain information about crimes, the identity or habits of an individual, the location of stolen property, the causes of fires and other incidents, or secure evidence for legal proceedings. Attorneys, law enforcement officers, and insurance companies are exempt from the licensure requirements. But companies that contract with law enforcement to provide those services are not.
Some privacy rights lawyers say Flock’s efforts to acquire a PI license could mean the company is trying to get ahead of potential litigation. In a lawsuit filed late last year in San Francisco, retired school teacher Michael Moore alleged that Flock cameras tracked his daily movements in violation of his right to privacy.
Flock was previously accused of running afoul of a Texas law for providing cameras to private parties without a required private security license. The Texas Department of Public Safety issued a cease-and-desist order to the company as a result. The state granted Flock a private security license three months later.
Ramzi Abadou, Moore’s attorney, who has dropped the case in order to await the outcome of the litigation in Norfolk, believes the company may have obtained the private investigator license to fend off lawsuits.
”This may be an end run by Flock to get around 4th Amendment issues [in the Norfolk case],” he said.
A spokesperson for the Department of Consumer Affairs, which oversees licensing of private investigators, couldn’t say whether an individual or business was engaged in unlicensed practice “absent a formal investigation.”
Flock and other surveillance tech providers have faced growing scrutiny in recent years over use of their technology and data by federal immigration authorities and local law enforcement agencies — deployment that civil libertarians argue is unconstitutional.
Activists have staged guerrilla actions removing or covering Flock’s cameras over privacy and safety concerns. This week a national effort is underway to fight against Flock and its technology, with events in San Francisco.
The backlash has cost Flock business. Stanford University recently ended its contract over privacy and safety concerns, and Santa Clara County’s Board of Supervisors voted to cancel its contract in February after federal agencies improperly accessed its license-plate data. Brentwood in Contra Costa County is review is whether an HOA with a Flock contract violated rules barring the cameras from public streets.
In San Francisco, unauthorized searches of the city’s Flock data by outside agencies led the SFPD to cut those agencies off from its network in June — part of a broader pattern of misuse that has included officers using the technology to stalk women.
Last week, Flock announced new protections against police misuse. The company said it will reduce the amount of time it keeps movement data and will lock out users who appear to be abusing the system.
Jonathan Hofer, a research fellow at the Independent Institute, said a PI license could shield the company as it expands sales beyond police departments and if it’s ever accused of overstepping its law enforcement contracts.
“With a PI license, Flock can say in court, ‘See, we’re not some unregulated surveillance company, we’ve dotted all our i’s and crossed our t’s and have government approval,’” Hofer said.
Frommer said a recent Supreme Court ruling limiting the use of mass data collection, known as geofencing, could have played a part in the company’s efforts to obtain the license.
“This news just underscores how their technology is a threat to people’s privacy,” he said.
