Privacy by Editorial Team

VIDIZMO Is Pitching Cops Facial Recognition on Flock Footage

A small vendor pitched Tennessee police on facial recognition across Flock camera data. Flock says it will not add facial recognition to its devices.

A video software company called VIDIZMO has pitched a police department on a capability that the automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company Flock Safety has publicly refused to build: facial recognition that, in VIDIZMO’s own words, “tells you which person” is on camera by matching faces against people enrolled in a watchlist. The pitch covers data from Flock cameras, while Flock itself says it will not add facial recognition to its devices. The email, obtained through a public records request by the local group DeFlock Johnson City, was sent to the Johnson City, Tennessee police in May.

For readers who already know what an ALPR is, this is the moment a piece of surveillance infrastructure starts to grow sideways. Flock’s cameras identify vehicles, not people, and the company’s stated policy is that “ALPR system searches are based on vehicle details, not faces” and that “In plain terms: It cannot recognize people” (Flock Safety). A separate vendor adding facial recognition to the same feeds would change that, even if Flock never touches a face.

What VIDIZMO is actually selling

404 Media reported on September 29, 2026 that a VIDIZMO salesperson emailed the Johnson City Police Department in May with an integration pitch. The department’s deputy chief, Michael Adams, was the recipient. The department said it did not take a call with the company.

The pitch sits on top of VIDIZMO’s existing product line. The company sells AI Live Insight, which it describes as real time detection on cameras, including “behavior” by individual people; Nexus, the platform its other products are licensed on top of (VIDIZMO); and AI Intelligence Hub, which the sales email described as bringing Flock data, Axon body worn camera footage, and other evidence into “one searchable platform.” The facial recognition layer uses an Object Library where faces are uploaded, enrolled, and then fed into watchlists (404 Media).

VIDIZMO’s own website frames the gap it is filling: “Detection tells you a person is in frame. Face recognition tells you which person.” Another page promises “Enrolled people and objects recognized on live feeds, with named alerts and snapshots for review.” The company also says it can classify faces by “age, gender, and race,” with seven racial categories: “White, Black, Indian, East Asian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and Latino Hispanic” (404 Media).

VIDIZMO’s customer documentation includes a page on bringing data from FlockOS, Flock’s “real time crime center” product, into three VIDIZMO products, and its marketing claims it can ingest data from Flock’s ALPR and livestream cameras. “An agency can import plate reads or clips that it has exported under its own authorized access,” CEO Nadeem Khan said in an email to 404 Media. “Flock has not been involved in or informed of this.”

What Flock says, and why that may not matter

Flock CEO Garrett Langley has said no. “We will not add facial recognition to our devices,” Langley said in a recent video (404 Media). Flock’s public safeguards page repeats that “ALPR Does Not Use Facial Recognition” and that “In plain terms: It cannot recognize people” (Flock Safety). Flock and Axon did not respond to a request for comment from 404 Media.

Khan said he thinks Flock should offer the capability itself. “I think Flock is trying to get out of the way rather than trying to implement the technology right,” he told 404 Media. Khan said VIDIZMO has not yet run facial recognition on Flock footage and has not built the specific Flock export tool, but “would love to do the integration.”

Khan also pointed to safeguards. According to 404 Media, he said police cannot use the system without a specific case number, that their actions in the system are recorded for potential audits, and that VIDIZMO collects no data itself (404 Media). Khan argued that “as a small company who is running without a VC, we have to provide alternatives to the industry” (404 Media).

The company’s existing procurement footprint is real. Its contracting vehicles page lists 37 vehicles across federal, state, local, and education procurement, including GSA Multiple Award Schedule access through Carahsoft, CDW-G, TD SYNNEX, and Insight Public Sector; NASA SEWP V; Army CHESS ITES-SW2 through Carahsoft; and Texas DIR and OMNIA Partners vehicles (VIDIZMO). Its about page lists the US Department of State, California DMV, ExxonMobil, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and Cleary Gottlieb among its customers (VIDIZMO).

What the demographic filter actually does

The seven racial categories drew the sharpest criticism in the 404 Media report. Chris Gilliard, a privacy expert and author of the upcoming book Luxury Surveillance, told 404 Media: “I’m appalled at the willingness of VIDIZMO to tout their capabilities to filter along the lines of race, age, and gender.”

Gilliard’s objection is the structural one. “What Flock says about their capabilities is to some degree irrelevant because they have built the infrastructure for mass surveillance” (404 Media). The race, gender, and age filters are not a fringe feature: VIDIZMO’s website tells law enforcement agencies they can “utilize attribute filters” when they have a suspect description. Other material markets demographic analysis to retail and marketing users: “By analyzing the activity in their store, sellers can determine which group spends the most time” (404 Media).

Khan pushed back on the framing. “Much of the harm your reporting has documented comes from implementation choices, not from the technology itself,” Khan said (404 Media). Khan told 404 Media that facial recognition “is the way the world is going, the way the world will have to be,” and “It is completely in line with what we want to do.”

The Johnson City email landed in the middle of a national backlash against Flock. Texas ordered state agencies in late August to pause Flock funding after a Texas Tribune investigation found at least $30 million from a $1 insurance fee had gone to at least 3,200 Flock cameras (Texas Tribune), and Flock’s CEO has publicly called for “compromise” between privacy and safety as the company faces a growing public outcry (TechCrunch). The Johnson City email itself surfaced through a local DeFlock group.

What This Means

VIDIZMO’s pitch shows how a refusal by the platform vendor does not actually block the capability. Flock says no; a smaller vendor says it would love to do the integration; data from the same cameras could then get a feature that Flock says it will not build into its devices. VIDIZMO’s defense is that the harm comes from “implementation choices, not from the technology itself.”

For readers, the practical point is that a plate read and a face could end up in the same search at any department that adopts this stack. The race, gender, and age filters are not a configuration mistake; they are listed use cases. Gilliard’s argument is that guardrails for one system are inadequate “because another company can (and will) come along to assemble another layer of surveillance on what has already been established.” ALPR audits have already shown how these systems fail in practice (LAPD audit).

The Bottom Line

VIDIZMO describes itself as a small company running without venture capital, and it is on federal contracting vehicles. Its CEO says it has not yet run facial recognition on Flock footage or built the Flock export tool, but it is pitching the capability. Flock says it will not build facial recognition into its devices. If the integration happens, it will be at a police department that says yes.