Flock Safety ends “Distress Detection” pilot for acoustic surveillance devices

The company said it removed the feature after “careful consideration and community consultation,” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Flock Safety has ended a pilot feature intended to identify signs of human distress through its acoustic detection devices, reversing a proposed surveillance use that drew civil-liberties concerns.

The feature, called “Distress Detection,” was associated with Flock’s Audio Detection devices, formerly known as Flock Raven. Flock said in a blog post that it had decided to remove the feature “after careful consideration and community consultation,” according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

EFF said it warned in October 2025 that Flock was rolling out the feature through acoustic gunshot-detection devices. The system was promoted as using microphones deployed throughout a city to search for sounds of human distress. Early marketing described the capability as searching for “screaming,” EFF said; Flock later changed that wording to “distress.”

The removal means the pilot will no longer use the devices to identify possible human-distress sounds. EFF had argued that such a capability could raise civil-liberties concerns, including the possibility that loud public interactions could lead to police responses. The group also said deployments of this kind of audio surveillance could be unlawful in some jurisdictions under state eavesdropping laws.

The decision does not address EFF’s broader concerns about the devices themselves. The organization said acoustic gunshot detection remains a potentially inaccurate surveillance technology even without the Distress Detection feature.