Internal email: Flock is rolling out a voluntary severance program; sources say a significant number of Flock's ~1,500 employees may depart, as customers flee (Wired)
As dozens of cities end contracts for its controversial license plate readers, Flock is rolling out a voluntary severance program, WIRED has learned.
Flock, a company that provides license plate readers, is offering a voluntary severance program to its employees. According to an internal email, applications for the program opened on Friday and employees have until October 2 to decide whether to leave the company. The company expects to grant buyouts to the majority of workers who apply.
The severance offers come as Flock continues to lose customers amid growing concerns about its network of license plate readers. The company's system has raised concerns about privacy and misuse, with reports of officers allegedly abusing it to track former romantic partners and colleagues. According to Wired, a significant number of Flock's roughly 1,500 employees may try to depart.
Flock's license plate reader system has been the subject of controversy, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) finding that police are routinely searching the Flock database without providing any legitimate justification. The EFF reported that in some cases, officers provided spurious reasons for searching the database, including expletives and humorous comments.
Brief written by urgent.news from Techmeme, Wired, TechRadar — 3 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
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