For retailers who use Flock cameras, brand reputation may be at risk

A little over a year ago Rory Stallard, Ulta Beauty’s director of organized retail crime, showed up at Flock Safety’s annual conference, Flock Forward, and talked about the retailer’s use of Flock technology.

“We were looking for technology that would help us bridge the gap and collaborate [with law enforcement],” he said, according to a Flock recap of the 2025 event; the company, he added, “really fit the bill for some of the things that we wanted to be able to do.”

That choice of technology provider is now under scrutiny.

Ulta, along with other retailers like Lowe’s and The Home Depot, have this year faced questions about their use of Flock, which, according to the company, operates a network of tens of thousands of cameras in 49 states. The network of cameras and its vast surveillance capabilities has outraged communities nationwide over concerns about the data’s accuracy as well as the ways in which law enforcement officials may access—and, in some documented cases, misuse—data collected by the cameras.

Those concerns around Flock seem to be coming for retailers that have, until recently, used the company’s tech for the purpose of security and anti-theft measures with little public pushback. In September, the gender justice group Ultraviolet circulated a petition demanding that Ulta end its relationship with Flock; over 10,000 women had signed it as of last month, according to a press release from the group. A Change.org petition that calls on lawmakers in Erie County, Pennsylvania, to remove Flock cameras installed in the county, including those at big-box retailers and a local mall, has more than 1,400 signatories.

Alla Valente, principal analyst, security and risk at Forrester, told Marketing Brew that the situation means retail brands are liable to get swept up in broader conversations around mass surveillance, which could have reputational consequences.

“It’s not something I anticipate dying down,” she said of the backlash. “Just going to do a normal Home Depot run or going to pick up an item at Ulta should not make you exposed to mass surveillance…These customers did not opt in for that type of surveillance.”

When reached for comment, Evelyn Fornes, senior manager of external affairs at Home Depot, directed Marketing Brew to its automatic license plate reader policy.

“We’ve had parking area security cameras in place at our stores for many years, as many retailers do,” Fornes wrote in an additional statement. “These cameras are used to help us prevent and investigate theft, fraud, and organized retail crime and to protect the safety of our customers and associates in our stores. We do not share automated license plate recognition (ALPR) data with immigration enforcement, and we do not grant access to our license plate readers to federal law enforcement.”

Ulta Beauty declined to comment on the record. Lowe’s did not respond to a request for comment. Flock did not respond to a request for comment.

Catching F̶l̶o̶c̶k̶ flak

Joseph Yakuel, founder and CEO of the agency Within, told Marketing Brew that for brands in the middle of controversial conversations, saying something is often better than saying nothing.

“The backlash is coming from the left and the right, so silence reads as having something to hide,” Yakuel said in an email.

Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said that broadly, the public outcry over Flock is fueled in part because the cameras serve as an ultra-visible sign that people are being watched.

“The American public has always been creeped out by mass surveillance [and] Flock license plate readers are easy to spot,” Chad Marlow, senior policy counsel at the ACLU, said. “Unlike a lot of mass surveillance that operates behind the scenes secretly, you’re driving down the road and you’re like, ‘My goodness, I’ve just gone by my third Flock license plate reader.’”

That visibility can potentially extend to retailers who have them near their stores, and Valente said those companies could risk undermining the brand trust that is considered key to maintaining customer relationships.

“Any time a company works with a vendor, supplier, partner in any technology form, they are expected to do a certain level of due diligence: understand the company but also understand the technology, understand the type of data that’s being collected,” she said. “Not doing that due diligence and exposing customers and customer data in that way is really just a breaking of that [trust].”

Valente suggested that customer retention could be a particular challenge, especially if shoppers are looking to avoid surveillance.

She said shoppers could decide, “‘I’d rather go somewhere locally, or maybe even like a smaller retailer that doesn’t hold my information.’”