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Title: Customer-Losing Flock Now Offers Buyouts to Avoid Laying Off Employees

Link: https://yro.slashdot.org/story/26/09/19/23492...

Mashable writes: Flock Safety offered employees voluntary buyouts on Friday,
WIRED reported... Without the buyouts, those familiar with the situation
suspect the company would have to lay off some of its 1,500 employees. WIRED
writes that people familiar with the program "say they believe that a
significant number of the startup's roughly 1,500 employees may try to
depart." Flock is making the severance offers as it continues to lose
customers... The company has had many of its contracts either not extended or
dropped this year, which could leave it short of revenue goals, according to
two of the people. A wave of vandalism targeting its cameras has unexpectedly
increased expenses. Without buyouts, Flock almost certainly would have to lay
off some staff, one of the people believes... People familiar with Flock's
severance plan tell WIRED that some employees may take the offer amid
speculation that the company, which has raised about $1.2 billion in venture
capital, might resort to selling off parts or all of its business to stay
afloat... One advocacy group identified 93 city and county governments that
cut ties with Flock in August alone. Overall in 2026, roughly three times as
many local governments have dropped Flock compared to the previous five
years. Flock has recently been building products that extend the company
beyond its core license plate reader offering. WIRED reported last month that
the company has developed AI-powered investigative software to identify
drivers, find potential associates based on patterns of movement, and search
across police records and other data. A separate WIRED analysis of Flock's
software found tools designed to continuously search camera feeds for people
matching written descriptions. WIRED's analysis of Flock's code also found
potential integrations with drones and other surveillance systems. Flock's
financial scrambles might explain an incident in Syracuse, New York. The
nonprofit news site Central Current discovered the city's contract said its
license plate data wouldn't be shared outside the police department, reports
Mashable: But the department had granted access to other agencies, which
police said was an accident. Over roughly a year, searches by officers around
the country reached Syracuse's data nearly 4.4 million times. And that wasn't
the only surprise in the paperwork. Central Current also found that Flock
could keep using Syracuse data after the contract ended. When the city
approved cameras from Axon to replace Flock's, Flock said Syracuse couldn't
simply end its agreement early. It warned that the city might have to pay for
both systems; so even as officials moved to replace the cameras, they faced
questions about what Flock could do with the data and what the city might
still owe. Meanwhile, the Texas Department of Transportation "has stopped
issuing permits allowing Flock cameras and other automated license plate
readers to be installed along state roads..." reports the Texas Tribune.
"There were an estimated 13,000 Flock cameras across Texas in August, but
hundreds of the devices have been shut down after [governor] Abbott's funding
freeze." And in August Florida's Republican Governor "ordered his state's
transportation department to remove the cameras from state roads, saying he
didn't want 'a surveillance state.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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