Lowe’s faces pressure to cut ties with Flock Safety as AI surveillance data raises serious privacy concerns

Lowe’s Home Improvement is facing pressure to cut ties with Flock Safety, the surveillance company that makes cameras, drones, and automated license plate readers (ALPRs).

The pressure comes amid reports that Flock data has been used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and even aided in an investigation of a woman who had an abortion, driving fears about a mass surveillance state. 

In August, 404 Media reported that Flock cameras stationed outside of Lowe’s and The Home Depot “are being fed into a massive surveillance system that law enforcement can access.” The story cited records obtained by EFF.

In an April 1 letter addressed to CEO Marvin Ellison and other Lowe’s executives, which was viewed by Fast Company, 38 organizations including Fight for the Future, Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the American Federation of Teachers, and more, demanded the company drop its contract with Flock.

The letter states that the country is “at a serious inflection point” where “repercussions of mass surveillance have life-altering consequences for the life and liberty of everyday people.” 

It continued, “Time and again, we’ve seen how automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras have exposed individuals to danger and persecution, whether they be protesters, legal observers, those seeking reproductive and gender-affirming care, or communities of color who are frequently profiled and harassed.”

The groups assert that Lowe’s has a responsibility to act in the best interest of the greater public, and that the partnership with Flock aligns the company with “brutal immigration” policies and “authoritarian rule.”

Fight for the Future asked Lowe’s to respond to the letter by April 17. 

At the time of publishing, the group says it has not heard back from Lowe’s, which also did not respond to a Fast Company request for comment about its ongoing contract with Flock.

Candid cameras

A Flock representative told Fast Company that its customers control their own data and can decide what is done with it.

“We would never share customer data without permission from the customer,” the spokesperson said. “There definitely are instances where private customers share with law enforcement but it’s with customer permission.” 

The representative added that it’s been “very well legislated” that there is no reasonable expectation of privacy when it comes to fixed ALPRs, and pointed Fast Company to recent legislation out of Virginia, which found the technology is lawful and should not require a warrant.

That ruling followed dozens of others, including 20 federal district court rulings, which all upheld the technology’s constitutionality. 

Further, the representative asserted that the technology is “lifesaving and critical.” To that end, on April 20, Flock issued a press release explaining how ALPRs led to the recovery of six abducted children over a five month period. 

A new retail battleground

Lowe’s is not the first home improvement company to face backlash over its ties with Flock.

The Home Depot has faced boycott threats, as well as demands from investors who asked the company to assess the “privacy and civil rights risks, including discrimination or wrongful detention from misuse of customer data.” The retailer has said it does “not grant access to our license plate readers to federal law enforcement.”

Concerns from investors, organizations, and citizens alike have only seemed to grow louder as home improvement stores have become hotspots for ICE raids. 

While Flock asserts that ICE does not have “direct” access to Flock data, organizations can share data at their own discretion.

Flock has federal contracts with organizations like the National Parks, Veterans Affairs, and military bases.

“These organizations can establish 1:1 sharing relationships with any other legal law enforcement agency on the Flock Safety platform, where applicable laws allow it, and only when communities explicitly allow federal data access,” the site explains.

Flock is used by around 5,000 law enforcement agencies across the country, according to the company’s own data. But resistance to it has grown.

In March, a group of protestors gathered on campus at UW-Madison to push back on the school’s use of Flock technology.

“The Flock cameras are an AI surveillance system that records every move of every resident that steps in its radar. This type of surveillance has been used by ICE to track people without our consent,” Lizbeth de Jesus, a member of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) at UW, told WortFM. “If the university claims to prioritize the students or the staff’s safety, why are they still refusing to revoke the cameras that abuse our identities?”

Weeks later, on April 10, students at Emory staged a massive walkout over the surveillance.

“It’s not just an immigrant rights issue, it’s a marginalized issue. It’s a Black issue, it’s a brown issue. A lot of people are being affected by this,” Anayancy Ramos, a doctoral student at Emory, told Capital B News.

Reem Suleiman, senior campaign director for Fight for the Future, which organized the letter to Lowe’s, says that grassroots organizers have been hard at work. She says the website DeFlock.me, in particular, has had a “massive” impact, and that overall, the efforts are starting to nudge cities in the right direction. 

“A close collaborator from nonprofit Secure Justice has been internally tracking the number of jurisdictions that have paused or terminated their Flock contracts since about the beginning of this month,” Suleiman says. “By his numbers, we’re at 68, which is truly unprecedented—perhaps even larger than some of the city-wide facial recognition bans that took off.”

While it’s unclear what direction Lowe’s will be moving in terms of its partnership, Suleiman believes that the momentum is undeniably growing and that soon, it will tug at the private sector. 

“We’re hoping Lowe’s can be a domino in that,” she says.

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