Reversing course, Flock Safety—the surveillance technology vendor most known for its extensive network of
automated license plate readers
—
has announced
that it will end a pilot for its
acoustic gunshot detection devices
to identify signs of “human distress.”
In October 2025,
EFF warned the public
that Flock was rolling out a new feature called “Distress Detection” that would be deployed through their acoustic gunshot detection devices (formerly known as Flock Raven, now called Audio Detection). This feature purported to use high-powered microphones scattered throughout a city to search for sounds of human distress, with original advertisements from the product indicating it would search for “screaming.” (Since the publication of our
original blog post
, Flock quietly amended the ad on this
webpage
to say “distress” instead of “screaming.”)
Now, Flock
has published
a blog post stating that “[a]fter careful consideration and community consultation, we decided to remove the feature.” Good riddance.
We said it when the product was announced and we’ll say it again: this was a misguided and dangerous feature because of the civil liberties concerns it poses, the possibility it could summon armed police to every loud interaction happening on the street, and because in several places
this type of spying would be illegal under state eavesdropping laws
.
We were
not quiet
about this potential new feature. Flock even mentioned our concern about Distress Detection in an
attempt
to rebut our opposition to the mass surveillance their products enable.
The suspension of Distress Detection, however, does not mean that these high-powered microphones are now magically safe or beyond our concern. Acoustic gunshot detection is still a dangerous and
often highly inaccurate technology
that has resulted in real world harm, as in Chicago where it resulted in
police shooting at children lighting fireworks
. As Flock itself states, “No acoustic system is perfe
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