Communities should decide how long Flock's data is stored, but the company provides default settings (currently 7 days) to balance privacy and efficacy.
Garrett explains that Flock allows local city councils to determine data retention periods, having recently reduced the default setting to 7 days to better balance privacy concerns with the needs of law enforcement. ✦ AI generated
Garrett Langley · All-In Podcast · 2026-08-18 · original ↗
starts at this moment · 7:17
“How does a community wind up having flock cameras installed? What's that decision making process like typically? And then we'll get into very granularly what you're recording, for how long, who has access...”
And so for the longest time, 30 days was our default. We've recently shifted that down to 7 days. Um we think that's a reasonable trade-off, but we still think cities should should decide um or states for that matter. But someone who is democratically elected should have the final decision of how this technology works in their community.
verbatim transcript · starts at 7:17
7:17nine years um is we we've always said this is this data is a liability to an asset. You should have a set retention period and that retention period for how long this data will be stored is going to determine the efficacy of the product. And so if you delete this data in a day or two, it's going to be less effective. It's still going to be better
7:36than nothing. And if you hold this for 30 days, it's going to be pretty effective. And you hold it for a year, it'd be more effective. And we always believed city councils should have that final say for how long they want to store it and who they want to share it with. And so for the longest time, 30 days was our default. We've recently shifted that down to 7 days. Um we think
7:55that's a reasonable trade-off, but we still think cities should should decide um or states for that matter. But someone who is democratically elected should have the final decision of how this technology works in their community. But what I think you probably agree with as a technology provider, we have to set strong defaults. We default matter is what we say in the industry. Yes. And you know if you think about the
8:17number of crimes of a hundred crimes, how many would and I'm sure you have some idea of this. If we have a hundred crimes that occurred of whatever the nature are, how many are solved with seven days of data, 30 days of data or require more than 30 days of do you have that? >> We have a we have a good sense, right? I mean, I'm going to give you an aggregate
8:39data point across the whole country. >> We think 90% of crimes will get solved within seven days of data retention. >> Beautiful. >> It is, Jason. But I would tell you I I I probably talked to two or 300 police chiefs this week and and they remind me and and I tell them you should tell your city council this too. >> Yeah. >> The 10% we're talking about or the 10%