Can a Camera on Every Corner Make Us Safer? | Garrett Langley | TED

I'm going to start with a story and. speaking to a grandmother in rural. Tennessee. and she was taking care of her. 11-year-old granddaughter. So, she wakes up. She walks into her. room. The bed's empty. She looks around. There's no note. There's nothing. And if your heart's not. racing right now, it should be. She calls 911. Detective arrives.

>> [snorts]. >> No sign of force. There's nothing. Except one thing that he remembered. There's a Flock camera just down the. street. So, he pulls out his phone. and runs a search for the night. and finds one car. He runs that tag. and it's his worst nightmare. It's a registered sex offender. So, he logs into Flock and and he's. looking for this car and he sees the car. is traveling down I-75 and if you're not. familiar with Tennessee and Georgia, that's the connecting state.

It's the highway. The person's on the. highway. The detective doesn't know what to do. So, he does what every hero does as he. moves into action. He jumps in his car and races down I-75. As he approaches the interstate line, he sees the vehicle. A violent struggle ensues. And at the end, he hears crying. And the girl's in the back. She's bound, but she's alive. They went on to go search the suspect's.

house. and the nightmare got scarier. Everything one would need to not only. assault, but dispose of the body was. there. Now, that girl's alive today because the. detective had two things. He had a license plate and he had a. direction of travel. This for me is one. of thousands of stories I sadly hear. about every day in America. I started Flock 9 years ago because of. this exact type of problem. See, I live. in in a city called Atlanta.

and I was frustrated. Crime felt too easy to get away with. It didn't make sense to me that you. could steal someone's car. and have an 80% chance of getting away. with it. Or you could kill someone and have a 50%. chance of getting away with it. So, I kept pushing. I kept pushing and. eventually I found a major in the. Atlanta Police Department who told me, "Mr. Langley, it's not apathy, it's not effort, it's. evidence. If all we had was a license plate, we. could catch these people." So, I I did.

what engineers did. I built a license plate reading camera. It sounds simple. Um but, I called two of my best friends. from Georgia Tech and we built this. camera. Uh he said, "You have to have. the license plate." So, we did that, put it up in my neighborhood, and about. 2 months later, we solved our first crime. And that was the beginning of Flock. And now, as you've heard, the company. has grown quite a bit since then. We do. more than cameras, we build cameras now, we build drones, we build audio. detection devices, we build software. that connects it all together. And the.

concept is actually still this simple 9. years later. Car drives by, we do what. we call a vehicle signature, we look for. the make, the model, the color, anything. a detective would notice. And then, you catch the bad guy. And that's what I thought we were doing, right? And then I was speaking to a. police chief not too far from here in. Washington and he said, "No, no, Mr. Langley, this is more than about. fighting crime. This is as. transformational as DNA.". And candidly, I was confused. It's a.

camera. What's the What's the rub? He said, "Well, look, let me explain to. you how policing used to work. Historically, policing is a subjective. exercise. You drive around suspicious. neighborhoods looking for suspicious. activity. And ah, there is the root of. the bias. What's suspicious to me is different. than her and different than him. That doesn't seem very good. And so, the chief was explaining to that. now with Flock. it's objective. That is a stolen car. That is a car that has a child in the. back of it. That is the car that has an.

amber alert or silver alert. So we've. moved the way policing works. It's pretty incredible. But let me give you a real-life example. So now we're going to go all the way to. Colorado. So it's a 911 call. It's a Levi's. outlet. And and this might be the most. important thing I say all day. The 911. is describing the getaway car as a white. van spray-painted black and blue. Here's a pro tip. If you're going to. commit a crime, do not spray-paint your.

vehicle. Do it in a Camry or Corolla, something. simple. Right, so the 911 call comes in. They have this van, so they go into this. our product and search for a vehicle. They can type in anything they want, white van, spray-paint, anything that. makes sense. Now though it's cool is it turns every. single camera. into a detective. Now every camera in. the city is looking for this white van. The second thing they do is they launch. a drone. So just like I would have launched the. drone up in the air. The drone's flying. at 400 ft 65 mph trying to find this.

white van. Now a camera eventually finds them, drone goes over. Now in a normal. reaction as a law enforcement officer. you have to assume the worst case. scenario. Is this person armed? Probably. Is the public at risk? Probably. So you come in hot. But with a drone overhead flying at 400. ft the suspect has no idea. Officers can. respond with precision and with. calmness. So from start to finish in 21 minutes. from a 911 call to Levi's outlet. tracking the car all the way to a second.

outlet, there was an arrest. Now if you zoom this all the way out, some of the biggest cities in America, some of the biggest companies in America. rely on Flock to keep them and their. employees and their citizens safe. Two years ago San Francisco was in a. crisis as many of you probably know. They deployed everything Flock has. License plate reading cameras, drones, video cameras, our software that ties it. all together, and Mayor Lori described. this fusion of sensors as a. transformation. in public safety. And if any of you live.

in the city, you know that it feels safe. all of a sudden. Crime is down 25%. Homicide is the. lowest rate it's been in 70 years. So, this all seems really good, right? Well, while the company's scale has. grown and a lot of things have changed. for me, one thing's been very. consistent. There is inevitably some part of this. audience today who's saying, "I don't. know. This snitching-ass startup kind of. doesn't make sense to me.".

And this was our first ever press. coverage, and I was I was so proud. I. framed this and my my poor mother was. like, "Why are you framing this?" And. I'm like, "Because it's a reminder. that when you work on important things, some people will disagree, and that's. okay.". It means you should work harder. And so, when I talk to these opponents, and I've. I've got to know them many of them over. the years now, they tend to have three. big issues with Flock. Whether this is constitutional. violation, what does this mean to my privacy, and.

are you building mass surveillance? These are pretty good questions. Let's. hit the easy one, constitutional. 30. court cases over the last 2 years, every. single one of them has unanimously said, "This does not violate the. Constitution." Why? We're not tracking a. person in real time. We are tracking a fixed location. Not a lawyer, but I'm going to go with. the courts. So, I'm going to check the. box on constitution. Second one's privacy. This is actually a. really good question because 9 years. ago, I did not have a degree in criminal. justice. I had no experience. I was an. engineer that just wanted to build a.

product to help fight crime. But when we. sat there and said, "What if we are. really successful? What could go wrong?". So, we started looking at what the. industry did. So, the first thing we asked was, "What. about data ownership? Who should own. this data? This is a lot of data. Historically, companies, my competitors, own the data and then they resell that. data for other use cases. In Flock's. model, the customer always own the data. So, if you live in San Francisco, it's. San Francisco's data, not Flock's. The second was retention. Well, how long. should this data exist?

Historically, companies in this industry. stored the data in perpetuity. That. seems to me more like a liability than. an asset. So, we delete the data at 30 days. If. cities and states have laws that say it. should store longer, we do that. Shorter, we do that. The third is around accountability. With everything that's powerful should. come heightened responsibility. Every. action inside of Flock. is audited and stored in perpetuity. So, every action an officer takes. And. sadly, three officers were arrested last.

year. for abusing this system. Now, I I think if anything that speaks. very poorly on the law enforcement. industry, but it is a reminder. that when you build tools to hold people. accountable, it starts to work. And then the last one, and this is the. most interesting to me. If you go to a. place like the UK, there's 45 police. departments. You go to Australia, there's eight. France, there's two. And does anyone want to guess how many. police departments there are in America? You're way off. 18,000.

Duh. Okay, this is the problem. You. literally can commit a crime in city A. and drive to city B and they're like, "Oh, who are you?". You leave state A to state B and they're. like, "Oh, we have no record of you.". This entire problem is a data problem. These cities have not historically. worked together. They moved to the cloud. less than 10 years ago, 5 years ago. And. so, one of the biggest criticisms of. Flock is that we create this national. network of data that allows local law. enforcement to work together. It's a. uniquely American problem. Third. question that I talk to you get, right? So, we covered the Constitution, we.

covered privacy. Now, the big one, surveillance state. Is this a creation. of a new surveillance state? You know, look, I think everyone in this room. probably has a cell phone. And what if I. told you that someone with mediocre. computer software skills could build a. product that tracks your exact location. in real time down to a few feet? Because all of you use Google Maps and. Uber and any device that has access to. location. And so I think about the tooling that we. ask our local law enforcement to use.

and we give them a weapon, a gun, a taser, yet we're afraid to give them a camera. that reads a license plate on a public. road. I'm not saying that it's not a. choice, I'm just saying that for me the. trade-off is I don't know how many more. 11-year-old girls need to be kidnapped. or human trafficking rings or silver. alerts or amber alerts we have to go. through before we say enough is enough. Now the Now the beauty of America though. is that every city, state, county gets. to pick. It's not my choice. I live in.

Atlanta, I vote, you should vote. The challenge is that when you decrease. surveillance and in an effect decrease. safety, it impacts certain parts of the. community more than others. If you are affluent in South Africa, you. have 9-ft walls, you have private. security guards. There are 600,000. private security guards in South Africa, more than the military and police. combined. So if you are affluent in. South Africa, it is a beautiful place to. live, you are crime-free. And if you are not affluent,

crime is simply the cost of being alive. Now if you transpose that to a place. like Tokyo, beautiful city, there's a. few dozen homicides a year. Whether you go to work at 2:00 a.m. or. 8:00 a.m., you feel safe. It just doesn't matter. And so America is this like very. interesting. conundrum in the middle. We have the law enforcement. infrastructure we need to be safe, yet. we haven't made to me the most important. decision as a society, which is that. safety should not be a privilege, Safety.

should just be a right. It should not matter the color of your. skin, your political affiliation, or. your income level. Everyone, in my. opinion, deserves the right. to be safe. Thank you very much. >> [applause]. >> It's so interesting, persuasively. argued. But, when you sell these systems. to law enforcement, how. strongly do you feel you have the right.

to limit what they can do? Because you. you've made a powerful case for these. things to be used the right way, but. everyone here can also imagine them used. the wrong way. Here's a protest, you know, that cameras do do things that. someone's cell phone doesn't do. You can. detect. in in in the end world in the world. where you can detect individuals, etc. Are you able to restrict what they do, or is it just you sell the system and. then it's over to you, act within the. law, my friends? >> Yeah. So, I actually want to answer your. questions in two parts. The first is.

when I I was having this debate with our. team because people were asking why why. does people. dislike Flock, but not these other. things? I said, "Well, it's you can see. Flock.". I guarantee you if you go to our website. and look at what our camera looks like, and you go back home if you live in. America, you will see our cameras. everywhere. They're easy to spot. But, your cell. phone, you just you're oblivious to all. the tracking that exists online, so you. forget about it. But, to answer your. question, um we do have restrictions. Now, obviously, there's this thing. called the Constitution, which we care a. lot about. There's state law, there's.

local law, but then there's things that. we just don't feel comfortable with. And. so, we do set in kind of our own policy. framework, and then just like most. technology companies, we have a full. team of attorneys who actually think. about this stuff full-time because our. customers are just not. >> Right. That far the adoption curve. >> I mean, how often do you or someone on. your team hear of something that is. being done with your technology that. makes you uncomfortable? >> Three times last year. Like, to me, it it it is horrible. that in the case was I'll pick on my own.

home state because I live in Georgia. There was a police chief in northern. Georgia that used Flock to track an. ex-partner. It's It's horrible. But then. I'm reminded that the GBI used Flock's. audit log to investigate that chief and. he's now in jail. And And so I think the thing I think. about your question is like if Flock did. not exist. he was probably a bad person. He was. going to do this one way or another. And so I look at the 1 million plus. cases and go, "Okay, this is the. trade-off that I can make." But that's.

my choice. >> You've got such a powerful technology. and it's very cool to hear you open to. having these discussions. Garrett, thank. you so much. >> much. Thank you. >> [applause]. >> That was a heavy one, right? Like we're. all facing this question with ubiquitous. surveillance. And look, think about it. It's totally legal to film in public. places, but now we have these AI-enabled. cameras that are tracking every single. person or vehicle that drives by. And. then when something goes down, you have. a drone that from really high altitude. can zoom in and track a suspect. Like. this is insane technology that exists.

today. This is obviously a controversial. topic and people are on different sides. of this. But at TED, we want to hear. arguments on both sides. Most people. want to live in a world that is free. from crime. At the same time, nobody. wants to live in a perpetual panopticon. where every move that you do is. surveilled. And a lot of the. double-edged nature of this technology. comes down to the people that are using. the tools, right? Like who gets the keys. to the castle and how are they deploying. this technology? The last thing we can. do is draw awareness to these issues and. have a conversation around it. Because. the technology is one thing, but the.

question about how we utilize it in. day-to-day society is a collective. conversation. So regardless of where you. fall on the issue, we want to hear from. you. So let us know your thoughts. I. hope you enjoyed.