In a quiet announcement on July 10, **Flock Safety** confirmed its decision to "remove" the product, as detailed in a company blog post. The feature, initially designed to identify potential violent incidents in areas where other public safety tools were less effective, was only available to a small number of customers in a limited trial and was never broadly released. The company attributes its decision to "community consultation," emphasizing that the system was not designed to capture or analyze people's voices in bulk. "The system cannot understand speech, analyze language, or identify voices," the blog post stated. "It doesn’t now, and it never has." ### The Backlash The controversy surrounding **Flock Safety**'s 'Distress Detection' feature began in October 2025, shortly after the nonprofit **Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)** reported on its existence. **Matthew Guariglia**, senior policy analyst at **EFF**, articulated the dangers posed by such a system in a July 17 blog post, noting the company's reversal. He highlighted "the civil liberties concerns it poses, the possibility it could summon armed police to every loud interaction happening on the street, and because in several places this type of spying would be illegal under state eavesdropping laws." ### Broader Scrutiny This development follows other recent challenges for **Flock Safety**. Earlier this month, the **Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD)** announced it would be cutting ties with the surveillance firm, joining a growing list of law enforcement agencies. Officials cited the need for greater protections regarding how information collected by **Flock Safety** is managed and stored.