Flock Safety has refused a request from a California resident to delete personal information and vehicle data, citing its role as a service provider for local law enforcement and private clients, according to honeypont.net.
The resident, a California inhabitant protected by the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), contacted the company's privacy department to opt out of what they termed a 'domestic spying program.' The request demanded the deletion of all information related to the resident, their vehicles, and their household members.
In a response obtained by honeypot.net, Flock Safety stated, 'Your request cannot be completed at this time.'
The company explained that because it acts as a 'service provider and processor' for its customers, it lacks the authority to directly fulfill the deletion demand. 'Flock Safety provides its services to our customers, and our customers are owners and controllers of the data Flock Safety processes on their behalf,' the company wrote.
Flock Safety advised the resident to contact the specific organizations that contracted their services to submit the request. The company's response also noted that its license plate readers (LPR) do not capture sensitive information like names or addresses, but instead capture 'images of publicly available and visible vehicle characteristics.'
Legal dispute over data ownership
The author of the honeypot.net post challenged the company's legal reasoning. They argued that since Flock Safety is the entity physically collecting and processing the personally identifiable information, the company remains obligated to comply with CCPA mandates.
'My non-lawyer reading of the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) would seem to obligate them to comply with my request,' the source stated.
Flock Safety maintained that its data processing is governed by contracts where customers make all decisions regarding data use. The company also noted that its default data retention period is 30 days, after which data is 'permanently hard deleted on a rolling 30 day basis,' though customers can adjust this period.
The resident of California noted they have not yet decided whether to hire legal counsel to contest the refusal.
