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Bedrock Management Services

Company type	Private
Industry	Real estate
Founded	2011 (2011)
Founder	Dan Gilbert Jim Ketai
Headquarters	Detroit, Michigan, United States
Key people	Kofi Bonner, CEO
Services	Real estate development Leasing Property management
Parent	Rock Ventures
Website	www.bedrockdetroit.com

Bedrock Management Services (formerly Bedrock Real Estate Services) is an American real estate firm headquartered in Detroit, Michigan. Founded in 2011, Bedrock is controlled by Dan Gilbert through holding company Rock Ventures. One of the largest real estate companies in Detroit, Bedrock owns many of the tallest and most historic buildings in the city's Downtown and Midtown cores, and is often considered the most influential developer in the 2010s revitalization of downtown Detroit.

History

In 2009, Quicken Loans, then wholly owned by Dan Gilbert, began the process of moving its headquarters from Livonia, a Detroit suburb, to downtown Detroit. As part of the move, the company acquired Chase Tower in April 2011. Bedrock was founded later that year to manage Gilbert's real estate holdings.

Notable properties

Listed by date of acquisition.

• Chase Tower (2011)
• Chrysler House (2011)
• One Woodward Avenue (2012)
• One Campus Martius (2014)
• Ally Detroit Center (2015)
• Tower City Center (2016)
• Buhl Building (2017)
• Courtyard by Marriott at Millender Center (2019)

Downtown Detroit security

Given Bedrock's large presence in Detroit, security cameras on the company's buildings capture activity throughout much of Downtown; per a Detroit Police official, Bedrock's cameras cover nearly every street and alley in Downtown. These cameras are monitored at a control center at The Qube, and operators notify authorities of emergency situations. Bedrock has also been known to provide recordings to the police in criminal investigations.

In addition to the cameras, Bedrock commissions private security guards to patrol downtown streets. These patrols began in 2013 in response to cuts at the Detroit Police Department amid the city's bankruptcy. The company initially contracted with Securitas to provide guards, before switching to rival firm SecurAmerica in 2018. Allied Universal acquired SecurAmerica in 2021, and subsequently took over Bedrock's patrols. Bedrock also contracts with City Shield Security Services, a Detroit-based firm.

Controversy

Bedrock's security measures are widely credited with improving the safety of downtown Detroit; at the same time, they've drawn criticism over privacy concerns.

2015 American Coney Island incident

A

Free Press surveillance

In 2015, reports began to circulate that Bedrock was monitoring cameras in the offices of the Detroit Free Press, which are located in the Bedrock-owned Federal Reserve Building.

2019 security guard strike

Flock Safety is an American manufacturer and operator of automated license plate reader (ALPR) and gunshot locator systems. Founded in 2017, Flock operates such systems under contract with law enforcement agencies, neighborhood associations, and private businesses, and claims to do so in over 4,000 cities across 42 U.S. states.

Flock's surveillance technology faces criticism for exacerbating issues of surveillance, particularly affecting minorities and leading to a chilling effect on civil liberties, as highlighted by privacy experts and organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU.

While Flock argues its technology aids in crime reduction and is designed not to identify individuals, there are debates about the efficacy of these claims and concerns about the comprehensive tracking of individuals' movements without suspicion of wrongdoing.

Critics argue for stringent controls and limitations on ALPR use to prevent disproportionate impacts on marginalized communities and to safeguard against the creation of expansive surveillance databases. Inaccuracies in ALPR technology have led to wrongful arrests and privacy invasions, raising significant concerns about the technology's reliability and the potential for misuse.

Corporate history

Flock was founded in 2017. By 2024, Flock's fixed cameras had been installed in over 4000 cities and 42 states across the US. Flock has raised $380 million in venture funding, with a $3.5 billion valuation in 2022.

Products and business model

Flock's main products, the Falcon and Sparrow, are automatic license plate readers.

Business model

Flock's investors tout its surveillance power:

"What magnifies the power of Flock Safety even more is that the digital evidence can be pooled across different law enforcement agencies for a short period of time, making it more powerful as adoption scales within a community and across the U.S. more broadly...The power of Flock Safety is in its network. The more devices deployed, the more evidence there is to solve crimes."

Technology

Flock Safety camera in West Allis, Wisconsin, with solar panel attached to light pole

Flock's cameras read license plates and send instant alerts to law enforcement officers when the cameras identify license plates that match those on "hot lists" of cars that are stolen or otherwise of interest to the police. Private citizens, home owners associations, and businesses can also use Flock's cameras, with their own hot lists.

Unlike other ALPR systems, Flock cameras allow searches based on the car's color and other visual features. Flock Safety "allows law enforcement officers to query for various characteristics of a suspect vehicle, including make and model, color, paper plates, and attributes...like a specific bumper color," reported Flock investor Andreesen Horowitz.

Efficacy

Flock claims to substantially reduce crime rates in communities where its technology is deployed.

One highlight is the case of San Marino, California, where Flock Safety's technology was credited with an 80% reduction in residential burglaries in early 2021 compared to the same period in 2020. This statistic was used extensively in the company's marketing efforts. A closer examination revealed that overall, residential burglaries, and more serious offenses, in San Marino did not decrease in the years following Flock's introduction; burglaries slightly increased, and serious crimes remained nearly unchanged.

Further investigation into Flock Safety's claims across other cities, such as Fort Worth, Dayton, and Lexington, showed a pattern of selective data use and potentially misleading marketing practices. Flock marketing overstated the effectiveness of its technology in reducing crime.

Critics argue that Flock's claims about its impact on crime rates lack rigorous scientific backing and might not hold up under closer scrutiny. Despite these criticisms, some law enforcement officials praise the technology for its utility in solving cases. Skepticism remains among academics and some law enforcement officials regarding the actual efficacy of Flock's technology in reducing overall crime rates, suggesting a need for more transparent and comprehensive analysis.

Controversies

Privacy concerns

There are privacy concerns about Flock's systems. The Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that ALPRs like Flock create more problems than they solve. There are concerns that Flock's system may cause harm, especially to minorities.

Privacy expert Jodi Daniels warns Flock's technology "creates an environment where individuals may feel as though they are under constant surveillance. This can lead to a chilling effect on free speech and other civil liberties, as people might become hesitant to express themselves or participate in certain activities due to the fear of being recorded and possibly monitored by law enforcement."

The American Civil Liberties Union released a report in March 2022 criticizing both Flock Safety's business model and its products. In 2023, the ACLU acknowledged some uses of ALPRS could be acceptable, but emphasized the need for careful controls:

We don't find every use of ALPRs objectionable. For example, we do not generally object to using them to check license plates against lists of stolen cars, for AMBER Alerts, or for toll collection, provided they are deployed and used fairly and subject to proper checks and balances, such as ensuring devices are not disproportionately deployed in low-income communities and communities of color, and that the "hot lists" they are run against are legitimate and up to date. But there's no reason the technology should be used to create comprehensive records of everybody's comings and goings — and that is precisely what ALPR databases like Flock's are doing. In our country, the government should not be tracking us unless it has individualized suspicion that we're engaged in wrongdoing.

Flock states its cameras and technology only captures data from vehicles, and the machine learning is specifically designed not to identify people. Flock has defended itself against "myths" about license plate readers. Although Flock Safety claims their cameras reduce crime, opponents argue that there is no clear evidence for this. In 2023, Atlanta police (Cobb County) credited a Flock license plate recognition system for helping them track down a gunman.

Flock's surveillance model has also brought debates into towns between supporters and opponents of the technology. Menlo Park, California opted out of a contract in 2023, bucking trends of nearby cities.

A 2023 report by the University of Michigan found:

"Recent studies examining the accuracy of ALPRs show that they often misread license plates, leading to disastrous real-world consequences, including violent arrests of innocent people. ALPR errors arise not only from shortcomings internal to their technology but from the hot lists they depend on to provide matches.

Even when ALPRs work as intended, the vast majority of images taken are not connected to any criminal activity. As most jurisdictions have no policies regarding retention limits, many agencies keep these scans on innocent people indefinitely. This can allow the government to maintain an overarching and potentially unconstitutional level of surveillance and can lead to abuse.

In some instances, officers have misused confidential databases 'to get information on romantic partners, business associates, neighbors, journalists and others for reasons that have nothing to do with daily police work.' Professional abuse includes targeting religious minorities and communities of color. Reproductive rights advocates are now raising alarms about the ways police and others could use ALPRs for the targeting of abortion clinics in the wake of the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade."

Unauthorized camera installations

According to a Forbes 2024 report, hundreds of Flock cameras were not properly permitted, running into problems with Florida, Illinois, South Carolina, Texas, and Washington.

From Jalopnik's reporting on the news: "In South Carolina, State Transportation Secretary Christy Hall told Forbes that since spring 2022, her staff has found more than 200 unpermitted Flock cameras during routine monitoring of public roads. In July 2023, the agency put a moratorium on new installations and ordered a safety and compliance review of all Flock cameras across the state... South Carolina Rep. Todd Rutherford had this to say: 'People don’t know what is happening with that data, who is accessing it, who is keeping it. All of that infringes on our personal freedom without our knowledge. It’s getting to the point where a company is willing to break the law to install these cameras.'”

External links

• Media related to 42-BRT/sandbox at Wikimedia Commons