Trust between communities and the technology that serves them is hard to build and easy to lose. That’s something I think about constantly as cofounder of Flock, and it’s why the work we do to earn and keep trust matters as much to us as the technology itself. 

I could not be prouder of the role Flock technology has played in keeping Colorado communities safer. But whenever technology enters the conversation about public safety, rightfully, so do the concerns.  

In Colorado, Flock has work to do, and I want to be direct about what that means.  

Setting the record straight 

There is a lot of misinformation circulating about Flock and how our platform operates. Chief among the claims: that we shared data with federal immigration authorities, or that the federal government has some kind of back-channel access to data collected by Colorado agencies. That has never been true. 

Colorado agencies maintain complete control over their data. We do not sell or share customer data with federal immigration enforcement authorities — full stop. Agencies that are not Flock customers do not have direct access to our platform.  

That isn’t to say we discount the value of local-federal collaboration. When an agency is working a complex human trafficking case, or when a suspect is on the run across jurisdictions, agencies regularly and appropriately work with federal counterparts. While federal immigration enforcement agencies are not customers, we do have other contracted federal law enforcement partners. However, only Colorado agencies decide whether they want to coordinate with them on our platform. Policy debates deserve accurate information, and we want Coloradans to be clear about what we have and have not done. 

What we got wrong 

Let’s address the elephant in the room: we did make mistakes, and you deserve to understand exactly what happened. 

In 2025, Flock engaged in two pilot programs with agencies under the DHS umbrella — HSI and CBP. These were pre-contractual relationships that allowed the organizations to test our platform before becoming customers. The focus of these pilot projects was on fentanyl and human trafficking investigations. These pilots worked the same way Flock always has: local agencies needed to opt into sharing relationships for their data to be accessed. However, we didn’t fully recognize the ramifications of allowing these agencies onto the Flock platform. At that time, it wasn’t easy enough for law enforcement agencies to manage their sharing permissions and we failed when we didn’t communicate about these pilot projects as clearly as we needed to. Communities deserved better from us, and the fear it caused falls squarely on our shoulders. 

Ultimately, it was the transparency mechanisms built into our own system — immutable audit logs — that allowed local agencies to identify their sharing relationships under these pilots and escalate them internally. I wish we had communicated this better, but the system’s accountability worked as designed. We’re not proud of the initial decisions, but we own them completely. 

How we’ve changed 

We listened. We terminated the federal pilots immediately and committed publicly to never engage in pre-contractual pilots with federal agencies again. Then we spent eight months completely overhauling our system and building stronger safeguards. 

Today, federal agencies cannot even see that a local agency exists on our platform unless that agency explicitly chooses to be visible. Then, individual sharing relationships need to be explicitly approved by both entities. Every search is logged with a standardized offense type, creating an auditable record. Every change to sharing settings is permanently recorded. We launched Flock Trust & Compliance, a dedicated product suite focused entirely on data privacy, transparency and accountability. This is ongoing work that is never done, as we understand that trust and compliance have to be built and earned every day. 

Just last week, we launched our Audit Assistance tool and we believe it represents a meaningful step forward for the entire industry. It gives agency administrators and command staff the ability to more proactively review, document, and respond to their audit records, facilitating even stronger oversight. This is the most transparent law enforcement tool on the market. In a field where public trust is everything, that kind of proactive transparency shouldn’t be the exception; it should be the standard. Flock is the only company in this space investing at this level in a formal Trust & Compliance program and we intend to keep raising the bar. 

We also have also been engaging with communities across Colorado, not to talk, but to listen and to truly understand the weight of the trust they place in us. As a result, we did the difficult work to rebuild the foundation and make the entire structure stronger. 

Colorado can lead the way 

Elected officials in Colorado have demanded accountability and pushed us to build a better platform.  

That’s exactly how this is supposed to work. The conversation about public safety technology doesn’t have to force a choice between safety and civil liberties. Colorado can demonstrate that it can, and must, coexist. 

That is the future we are committed to building alongside Colorado, together. 

Paige Todd is the co-founder and Chief People Officer of Flock.